Like Baby Boy, Jim McKay’s film confronts the distressing topic of teenage parenthood in the inner city. McKay has toured this neighborhood before in Girls Town (1996), an improvised feminist portrait of the lives of three teenage girls in Brooklyn — white, Latina, and black — who bond over a friend’s suicide. Here he pursues another trio, who are also rattled by a suicide, and though the racial configuration is different (black, Latina, and mixed), and a prize-winning marching band is thrown in, the theme of empowerment and the style of cinéma-vérité remain the same.

Boisterous Joycelyn (Anna Simpson), smart and pretty Lanisha (Kerry Washington), and troubled Maria (Melissa Martinez) form a rocky alliance against the travails of churlish boyfriends, unexpected pregnancies, and family stress. McKay captures with warmth and authenticity their habits, hopes, and small talk, so much so that their acceptance of such realities as motherhood at age 15 and the fathers’ callous irresponsibility is taken for granted. This director doesn’t probe for causes or preach cures, but like the real-life JRC Steppers, who provide raw, rousing musical interludes between scenes, he makes the most of the material at hand.