Jessica Rae’s directorial debut is a messy but insightful look at timeless injustices.
In a time when the education system is bursting at the seams and underworked, underappreciated teachers and staff are trying their best to hold it together, Raise Your Hand is an inspiring yet rough around the edges drama that celebrates creative expression and blunt tenacity in an urban 1990s setting.
Director Jessica Rae pulls together a nimble, yet sometimes unfocused, film about generational disconnect and grandfathered-in hardship. Also serving as writer and producer, Rae drew from her real experiences growing up as a multiracial woman in Minneapolis.
Raise Your Hand follows 16-year-old Gia (Jearnest Corchado), a talented but disengaged student, and her tumultuous relationship with her troubled best friend, Lila (Hanani Taylor). Gia loves to write, and her journal is her safe place. Sharp in intellect but blunt in demeanour, she’d never dare share its contents wantonly. But when a traumatic event sends this lovably messy protagonist into a spiral, she’s inspired to allow her words to be seen by her contemporaries in the form of a high school theater production.
Unsurprisingly, Raise Your Hand does occasionally have a high school theatre slant, with its dialogue sometimes a blunt instrument and teen movie tropes heavily utilised. But none of that is enough stopping power against its heart and tenacity.
The 90s setting is authentically crafted and refreshing. Today’s coming-of-age films feature an irritating amount of technology, which often doesn’t film well. There’s none of that here. The homes, school, and workplace sets are lived-in and dressed nicely. Opting for this era also makes the subject matter of the film more pronounced, as today’s teenagers are more likely to discuss challenging topics without as much stigma.
Raise Your Hand also echoes the likes of Abbott Elementary by shining a light on unsung heroes trying their damndest in increasingly difficult schooling environments with mountains of pressure and little reward. Luckily for the world’s teens (and the crooks who refuse to pay them a suitable wage), under-resourced public school teachers can derive some satisfaction from helping young people come out of their shells. That’s what happens in this indie: with the help of drama teacher Ms. Ramsey (Jess Nurse), Gia uses tear-stained journal pages as a creative outlet.
Though not the driving force under the hood of the story, Ms. Ramsey and her colleague Amaris (Joel Steingold) try, fail, and try again to support Gia and her unlikely troupe’s idea, despite the smothering respectability politics of the school board. Raise Your Hand smartly points out that to connect with unmoored young people, we have to level with them. That means honesty and meeting them where they’re at, not just telling them what to do.
In this case, the fed-up kids in the group want someone to back them up, to let them tell their stories without censorship or platitudes. They also want the adults to understand that being from an impoverished area where police violence and crime are equal threats means systems are working against them. They’re not just lazy or unmotivated; they’re facing legitimate roadblocks and personal problems that prevent them from becoming ideal students.
Rae knows tackling real shit without irony is challenging though, especially for uber-online Zoomers with their several layers of self-defense mechanisms. There’s a quick but inspired scene where two of the class jokers, the kind of teenage boys that would challenge even the most patient educators, are acting out a scene from the Broadway musical RENT — the one about AIDS “and stuff,” as one of the teens eloquently puts it. At first, the frame is just the two boys, and it seems like they’re really trying. You buy in for a second, then they break to giggle, and the camera reveals other kids sitting in audience on the stage, cross-legged. They laugh to break the threatening tension of a genuine emotional moment. But this film’s clear statement is that a problem shared is a problem halved — even if some roadblocks seem insurmountable, we don’t need to share the burden alone.
The group finds passion in Gia’s project (after much convincing from Gia and Ms. Ramsey), which serves as a release valve for the pressure building internally. The class focuses its anger and pain into the play, which is about the worst night of Gia’s life. Other kids add splashes of their own experiences into it, creating a tethered rope crafted from different walks of life. Art is expression, and they sorely need it.
As the characters’ increasingly intersecting social lives begin to boil over, everyone is challenged. It takes legwork for the characters to speak up about who or what has hurt them, and for the teachers to create a safe place for them to do it. It’s in these moments of near-defeat where Raise Your Hand shines. Knockbacks are par for the course for these kids, but they’re allowed to get loud about it — to shout, to cry, and to rightfully be a bit bratty in their worst moments. It’s also one of those films where the actors’ passion comes through — sometimes you can just tell. That’s no surprise, given the underfunded state of public schools in poor American neighborhoods now, and the teachers trying to warn us about those who fall through the cracks.
Raise Your Hand rewards patience and investment by watching the kids grow and exercise empathy. Supporting characters don’t get a lot of time, though. An extra ten minutes could have given them space to flesh out the background. But their subplots do inform every narrative juncture. It’s frustrating when they do typically mean teenager things, but they’ll also tug on your heartstrings when they break through barriers to help heal each other’s wounds.
The story travels in a lot of directions, however, and the overlapping plotlines feel chaotic at times. Not only are we following the post-traumatic stress of Gia’s inciting incident and the creative journey of making the play, but we’ve also got our attention on the difficult relationship between her and her mother (Fenix Lazzaroni), and the up-and-down relationship with Lila. But shape is formed the more Raise Your Hand concentrates on the play.
There are also some frustrating sound issues, where some speakers’ dialogue is at a lower level than their scene partners’. Whether this was just a problem with the press screener or not, hopefully, it’ll be ironed out in time for the June 3, 2025, North American digital release.
Raise Your Hand is ultimately about connection, and taking it upon ourselves to not just see the pain young people are in, but to fully engage with it, regardless of how uncomfortable it can be. We’re all somewhat responsible for the world that today’s teens will come of age in. So, make the effort to ‘get it’ in the way we wished ‘old’ people would get it when we were raging against the machine. Beyond the obvious reason to do so — kindness — there’s a return on investment. This film champions art made by kids who don’t always get the opportunity to make it. Their perspectives are unique, and organisations — and the government should continue investing in programs that help them share those perspectives, even if, like these kids themselves, the results can be a little messy.
Score: 6
