We Grown Now
Sony Pictures Classics | Release Date: April 19, 2024 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
76
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 21 Critic Reviews
Positive:
19
Mixed:
2
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Original-CinLiz BraunMay 8, 2024
This coming-of-age film captures the exuberance of childhood even as it shows the gradual encroachment of outside social pressures. Read full review
100
The A.V. ClubManuel BetancourtApr 16, 2024
There’s artistry here in how a boy’s world is coming to a close, an elegy for what was and a welcome invitation to see what could yet be. Read full review
90
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerApr 18, 2024
The power of this film sneaks up on you. It glides from jubilation to heartbreak without missing a beat. Read full review
90
Screen RantNadir SamaraOct 2, 2023
It is Baig’s vision that makes We Grown Now sing in a way that is totally incomparable. Every shot, every musical choice, everything that makes a riveting movie is on display and at its very best here. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comPeyton RobinsonApr 19, 2024
Minhal Baig’s “We Grown Now” is a film masterfully tied to the emotive potential of place. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsApr 18, 2024
Rather than go for the throat, its central friendship makes room for feeling, but also for listening, and watching, and reflection. You may cry or you may not. But the movie is up to far more than making sure you do. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperApr 18, 2024
With Smollett, Howery and Merkerson infusing life and depth into the adult characters, and the young actors Blake Cameron James and Gian Knight Ramirez turning in natural and affecting work, “We Grown Now” will resonate with you for a very long time. Read full review
80
Wall Street JournalKyle SmithApr 18, 2024
As this frequently lyrical and touching portrait of youth reminds us, for many thousands of people over the years, Cabrini-Green was simply home. Read full review
80
VarietyTomris LafflyApr 18, 2024
Even in its quietest moments, “We Grown Now” feels alive through the kids’ joint triumphant spirit and Baig’s discernible love and care for them. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesRobert AbeleApr 18, 2024
Set in the high-rises of the Cabrini-Green housing project in 1992, when the beleaguered complex’s decline was palpable, it sounds like a recipe for doleful poverty-gazing. But in Windy City native Baig’s solid hands, it’s a resolutely poetic, at times even golden-hued portrait of lives unafraid to hope amid growing despair. Read full review
80
Screen DailyRobert DanielsApr 1, 2024
An unassuming character study set to poetic rhythms makes for an empathetic study of Black life, full of resolve. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesApr 25, 2024
Thoughtful and achingly empathetic – there is so much grace in these performances – We Grown Now occasionally tilts a touch too capital-A Arthouse Film. Read full review
75
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenMay 1, 2024
If the movie’s straightforward dramatic and dialogue scenes don’t have the same delicacy as its more poetic gestures—especially once increasing crime, police harassment, and discriminatory housing policies close in on these two families—the film still stirs the soul as a counter-document to alarmist history. Read full review
75
The Associated PressLindsey BahrApr 18, 2024
We Grown Now is slightly dreamy and stylized, too, but instead of a liability, it makes this very small story feel grand, poetic and cinematic — just like it would for an 11-year-old. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineDerek SmithApr 15, 2024
The film is held together by the universal strength of its performances, particularly James and Smollett, and the elegance with which it veers between dreamy interludes and poetic flourishes stemming from Malik’s imagination and the more quotidian presentation of the small world he lives in, warts and all. Read full review
72
Paste MagazineJacob OllerApr 17, 2024
Writer/director Minhal Baig’s ‘90s coming-of-age drama is one of realistic warmth, rumbling hopes and roadblocks jutting up in front of children whose very existence is defiant. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterLovia GyarkyeApr 1, 2024
The result is a film that takes the idea of beauty seriously and works, with deceptive ease, to show us the tiny pleasures that make up life in Cabrini-Green. Read full review
63
Washington PostAmy NicholsonApr 26, 2024
It’s a simple, gentle tale that’s told beautifully but feels hollow — like a eulogy for an acquaintance. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeOdie HendersonApr 25, 2024
“A place is the people,” a closing screen credit tells us. It’s a lovely sentiment, but “We Grown Now” feels more like fleeting memories of those people rather than a fully formed reminiscence. Read full review
60
The New York TimesManohla DargisApr 18, 2024
Some of this is effective, even if too many of Baig’s filmmaking choices — the honeyed cinematography, the score’s agitated violins and Malik’s preternaturally knowing voice-over — finally overwhelm the story’s fragile lyrical realism. Read full review
58
IndieWireKate ErblandApr 1, 2024
While the moments focused on the kids’ lives are the best part of the film — James and Ramirez have natural chemistry and are compelling to watch — Baig occasionally falters on that front too. Read full review
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