Skate Kitchen

A skateboard-loving girl from Long Island angers her disapproving mother by sneaking off to New York City to join up with a bunch of like-minded street kids in this first fiction feature by Crystal Moselle (The Wolfpack). Despite her naïveté, Camille (Rachelle Vinberg) is quickly adopted by the other girls, who are constantly dismissed by the skateboarding boys as poseurs, even moving in with Janay (Dede Lovelace) after she’s thrown out of her house by her mother. The girls’ camaraderie is infectious, and the film is at its best when it merely eavesdrops on their candid conversations or follows them as they skate around the city. Skate Kitchen becomes more conventional—and less interesting—when Camille connects with Devon (Jaden Smith), a sensitive co-worker who just happens to be Janay’s old boyfriend, and then has to choose between sisterly solidarity and the pangs of young love. Regardless, the exuberance of the young cast—who are all, except for Smith, non-professionals Moselle met on a train—makes this a compelling coming-of-age tale. Recommended. (F. Swietek)