In a scene straight out of a stylish Wes Anderson flick, a line-up of several impossibly cute (and possibly new) girl scouts faces an experienced seller, who checks the novel hopefuls’ knowledge of their new venture. What are some Girl Scout cookie varieties? Thin mints. Adventurefuls. Samoas. Then she offers them a wise word of advice: “You should never talk back to a customer. And you should always try to upsell. Does everyone know what upsell is?”
At the start of Alysa Nahmias’ adorable delight “Cookie Queens,” the dust-pink innocence of the picture is still so vivid that you could at first be appalled by this slick and artificially sweetened taste of capitalism that invades it as soon as the word “upsell” enters its margins. Rest assured, the shock fades away fast in Nahmias’ lovely documentary on sisterhood, youthful ambition, and our personal journeys through girlhood. What lingers is the undeniable and very welcome reality that the young girls of today will one day be the leaders and challengers of the world that they’re growing up in: commercialism, patriarchy and all. And in order to not only survive but also thrive in that world, shouldn’t they flex their entrepreneurial muscles at a young age and work towards a goal meaningful to them?
The four kids Nahmias affectionately features throughout “Cookie Queens” not only do that, but also portray the different corners of a flawed yet empowering industry in all its crunchy and chewy glory. For these girls and countless others that bring the Girl Scouts organization an annual revenue of $800 Million in cookie sales in just 6 weeks (yes, you read the number correctly), the cookie business is a lot more than selling boxes of treats to strangers. It is a great way to build lasting friendships, learn leadership skills, and understand one’s own limits at a young age, despite the fact that the org itself can perhaps use some innovation and transformation here and there.
Olive, the experienced cookie seller we meet at the beginning, is among the film’s main subjects, and also a firm believer in the Girl Scouts’ mission—so much so that she is unafraid to challenge it when it comes to demanding more for the girl scouts and their families. Presently, only $1 of every $6 box of cookie sold goes directly to the Girl Scout’s troop. (While the girls can earn prizes and other rewards based on their success, the organization keeps the rest for their overhead and operational costs.) The state champion cookie seller in North Carolina with more than 12,000 boxes sold, Olive wonders why their own earnings per box doesn’t stretch further than a dollar. “We’re doing all the work,” protests the young girl, with a confidently voiced ambition to become a supreme court justice in the future. When she isn’t selling even more cookies or spending time with her best friend Celia (also a Girl Scout) in segments that Nahmias captures with heartwarming beauty, Olive writes to necessary parties to have voice in the proceedings. Elsewhere, her scenes with her mother that Nahmias observes insightfully are among the film’s strongest. Through them, we witness a young girl smartly and emotionally interrogating the limits of her own ambition, and figuring out in real time how much pressure we sometimes put on ourselves to please others including our families.
The five-year-old San Diego-based Ara, meanwhile, has more modest goals compared to Olive, aiming to up her sales to 55 boxes this year compared to the 5 she proudly sold last season. Diagnosed with Type-1 Diabetes at a young age, Ara can only taste the cookies she sells in moderation, but an even sweeter taste of success awaits her regardless as she inches closer to her goal while practicing pilates and launching her own sugar-free cookie line.Elsewhere, Chino, CA’s nine-year-old Nikki comes from a long tradition and line of Girl Scouts like her older sisters Nyah and Nala, guided by their mom. Hoping to make it far enough to go to Europe with her cookie sale rewards, Nikki is sometimes challenged by her sisters’ relatively older age (some customers seem to falsely assume they aren’t young enough to be Girl Scouts), having to be the cute hook for the entire group.
The final Girl Scout of the movie is the eight-year-old Shannon Elizabeth from El Paso, TX, for whom becoming a part of a troop had been instrumental toward coming out of her shell. Her story is perhaps the toughest one of “Cookie Queens,” giving us a cold dose of reality when it comes to the financial stakes involved in this particular cookie business. It is also one of the picture’s most rewarding as we witness the young girl take up Karate on the one hand, and get to learn more and more about her own Native American culture on the other.
Alongside gorgeous needle drops like “Cookie Road” and “Dreams,” Nahmias maintains her delicate observational style throughout, painting both a melancholic portrait of childhood and several different corners of Americana through young perspectives, infusing our hearts with some hope for the future. While her movie is for all ages equally, it is also far from toothlessly saccharine. Nahmias understands and spells out how race, economic realities, and other social and demographic factors can sadly come to define what success might look like in America. It’s all in there, in the direct aftertaste of this irresistibly sweet package.
