Bx3M (2016)★ 7.1/10

US · 103 min · November 29, 2016

• Drama
• Family

Directed by: Judith R. Escalona

Written by: Judith R. Escalona

Bx3M: Sometimes love is the endgame. Maria, Mona and Michael are beginning their senior year at James Monroe High School in the Bronx when reality hits them like a ton of books to the head. Three interlacing narratives tell one story about finding love and losing it, about making hard choices that can even lead to death. Graduation is a no-brainer for Maria who is top in her class. Her best friend Mona wants to go to Cooper Union and that spells trouble for the aspiring photographer. Michael, Maria's boyfriend, is flunking out. No matter, Michael is on a mission yet unknown to him -- call it destiny or revenge. Like many teenagers, they are making choices that will shape their lives. Maria loves Michael more than anything in the world but that love is blind. Her father knows it. Maria will have to see for herself. Mona needs to choose between Seneca, a Monroe track star, and Sam, a Cooper Union art student. Her crisis is a well-kept secret till her mother finds out Sam is a girl. Michael sees the future through the bars of the past. As a child he watched his mother die at the hands of drug dealers and his father never did anything about it. Michael refuses to be like him. When his best friend is killed by the local drug dealer, Michael goes after him. Genuine experiences inform the lives of the three teens. Portraying the lives of inner city girls like Maria and Mona sets this urban drama apart. These portraits of Latina adolescents are memorably different, yet their struggle is universal. Michael's story, too, draws on the conventions used to represent ghetto life but with unpredictable twists and turns.