At the Ready
**Seen at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival.
Over the past couple of years, it feels as though we’ve been getting more and more documentaries about the younger generation becoming politically active and aware. Sometimes that’s because of tragedies they’ve either experienced (“US Kids”) or seen (this festival’s “Homeroom”), and sometimes it’s because they just feel inspired to lead (like in “Boys State” and this film). I don’t really remember that being a subgenre of the political documentary for my generation, but now that I’m in my 40s, not only do I wonder what that would have looked like, but I’m glad to see it now; it feels as though the future will be bright with some of the leaders we see growing in these films.
In “At the Ready,” we do not see potential politicians blossoming but law enforcement officers. This isn’t going to dovetail into the issues of the Black Lives Matter movement, although you’ll likely think of those issues watching Maisie Crow’s film, but where it concerns patrolling the southern border of the United States. The film takes place in El Paso, Texas, and follows students of Horizon High School in El Paso, which is just 10 miles away from the Mexican border. All three students- the recently-graduated Cristina, and seniors Cesar and Mason- are a part of the Criminal Justice Club at the high school, and a big part of their involvement includes getting them prepared to possibly be border patrol officers. Since all three are Latinx, and the community is heavy with a Latinx population, some of what they’re exposed to in the club puts them at odds with their community in how they are taught to look at the issue of illegal immigration. For Cristina, she is going through border patrol training, while Mason and Cesar are finding personal parts of who they are challenged by what they are learning.
The film takes place between 2017-2019, where the election of Donald Trump, and his rhetoric on illegal immigration and the policy of family separation, helped transform the dialogue swirling the issue. Both of those things play big roles in the fabric of “At the Ready” and the three stories it is telling; coupled with what we see of the training Mason and Cesar are receiving, and it’s fair to question how these students are being instructed to see not just people they may come across on the border, but their own neighbors. Taking into consider all that we come to know about these three, their paths by the end are not terribly surprising, and inspiring to see. Even if it’s not the direction they expected, their experiences still play a part in who they are, and what they believe in. That’s always inspiring to see in young people.
