![‘baby/girls’ Review: Urgent Teen Pregnancy Documentary Privileges Nuance Over Dogma [SXSW]](https://cdn.theplaylist.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/19163131/baby-girls-357756.jpg "‘baby/girls’ Review: Urgent Teen Pregnancy Documentary Privileges Nuance Over Dogma [SXSW]")
Documentary can be a difficult genre if you’re averse to dogma. If you watch a lot of political documentaries, it becomes increasingly easy to tell which were made with the intent to make a particular argument from the outset and which evolved according to the gathered material. Today, when you can find viewpoints that mirror your own as easily as a good sheet pan chicken recipe, it’s far more refreshing to see nonfiction filmmakers follow an issue wherever it takes them, especially if they’re making a movie about something really divisive. “baby/girls,” directed by Alyse Walsh (“Connected: The Hidden Science of Everything”) and Jackie Jesko (“Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything”) is a delightfully nuanced, achingly human film centered on three teenage mothers in Arkansas that is sure to challenge and move viewers in equal measure.
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The film opens at Compassion House, a Christian nonprofit in Northwest Arkansas that is the only residential facility in the state for expecting or new teen mothers. Girls usually end up there thanks to a court order, often because they’ve been arrested, the state is trying to keep them out of unstable home environments, or both. “baby/girls” centers on Grace, 15, Olivia, 16, and Ariana, 17, as they prepare to transition out of life at Compassion House and reenter the real world. In the wake of Dobbs v. Jackson, it would be easy for this film to languish in the facility, interrogating the conservative Christian values that have led Arkansas to lead the country in teen pregnancy rates. Instead, Walsh and Jesko follow their subjects outside of the home, revealing that these girls have far more stacked against them than one piece of legislation.
None of them had good sex education or an unstigmatized view of abortion, to be sure — at the beginning of the film, another Compassion House resident struggles to remember the word “uterus” — but “baby/girls” is also admirably unflinching as it examines the complexities of teen sex and teen girl sexuality. As Grace bats enormous fake eyelashes at the camera and Olivia applies mascara just before the birth of her son, it’s hard not to imagine that their harrowing pasts must have forced them to bypass girlhood altogether.
To understand how these girls became mothers, “baby/girls” looks at their lives holistically. To quote Crystal, a worker at Compassion House and former teenage mother herself, “teen pregnancy is a generational cycle.” Grace and Olivia were both born to teen moms (as was Crystal) — Grace’s mom is a recovering drug addict with four other kids, while Olivia’s mom died by suicide when she was eight. Levelheaded Ariana, who has the most going for her of the trio, was fathered by a rapist, reporting that her mother kept her “out of spite.” The cycle of poverty looms large over everyone.
Rather than beating viewers over the head with all that, Walsh and Jesko (and their excellent cinematographer, Cassandra Giraldo) let the landscapes of small-town Arkansas speak for themselves. Editor Daniela I. Quiroz expertly layers images over testimony for maximum emotional resonance. From picturesque rolling hills to rickety downtowns, teenage house parties to labor and delivery wards, “baby/girls” perfectly captures the austerity, bleakness, and beauty of its subject matter.
A consummate example of compassionate, effective nonfiction storytelling, “baby/girls” fearlessly and objectively tackles some of America’s biggest problems. It’s a must-see for those of us not living in these small, poverty-stricken communities, most notable for the lengths it goes to understand its subjects. May all other filmmakers hoping to parachute into marginalized people’s lives be taking notes. [A]
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