Photo: Hulu
Welcome to Cheat Sheet, our brief breakdown-style reviews of festival films, VR previews, and other special event releases. This review comes from the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. It has been updated to reflect the film’s release on Hulu.
In the middle of the documentary Jawline, 16-year-old nano-celebrity Austyn Tester organizes a fan meetup in a mall food court. A gaggle of teen and tween girls show up, and he soaks up their rapturous affection, offering compliments, hugs, and photos. Then, the group walks the mall together in a strange parody of a first date: Austyn in front, the girls trailing behind him, phone cameras aloft.
The moment is awkward but oddly winning, which is a sentiment that could apply to much of Jawline. Jawline is…