Cookie Queens
Girl Scout Cookie doc is entertaining and interesting, but could've used more teeth.
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“Cookie Queens” (in select theaters beginning Friday, Aug. 7) is a cute documentary about four Girl Scouts and the lengths to which they’ll go to sell Girl Scout Cookies during their sales season. It’s executive produced by Prince Harry Duke of Sussex and Meghan Duchess of Sussex. It was a nice palate cleanser after this week’s “Ice Cream Man” (which I also admittedly enjoyed) - go figure a movie can include kids and desserts while skipping death and dismemberment.
Our titular “Cookie Queens” are Ara, Shannon Elizabeth (I gotta admit I guffawed a bit at her sharing a name with the “American Pie” and “Scary Movie” starlet), Nikki and Olive.
Ara is a bespectacled, 5-year-old Daisy from California who’s a type one diabetic and has meager goals of selling 55 boxes of cookies. She composes songs that she sings and plays on her keyboard in hopes of hawking sweets. She also makes sugar-free cookies she can enjoy as she can’t partake in many of the goods she’s peddling. Ara is a darling little girl who wholesale steals the doc and was easily my wife and my favorite subject.
Shannon Elizabeth is a Latina and Native American youth from El Paso, Texas who’s selling cookies so she can afford to go to Girl Scout camp. Her sales techniques employ her martial arts prowess and in an online commercial she commands, “Buy cookies … or else.” Her parents may have overextended themselves and worry they may be on the hook for a bunch of boxes they can’t move.
Nikki is the youngest daughter of an African-American family from Chino, Calif. who’s following in the successful sales footsteps of her older sisters Nyah and Nala. Their ambitions are greater than going to camp - a European vacation and a big, gaudy trophy are on the line.
If one kid is the undisputed “Cookie Queen” it’s Olive. This 12-year-old from Charlotte, N.C. could sell ice to Eskimos. She set a record selling 8,700 boxes, makes frequent television appearances on behalf of the cause and often upsells customers by asking, “Would you like to add two more boxes to make it an even $30?” Olive has a bit of Tracy Flick from “Election” energy and says she wants to become a Supreme Court Justice when she grows up. She also verbalizes that selling cookies is essentially child labor, advocates that more funds should go directly to the troops (Amen, sister!) and laments being pressured into selling by her mother while simultaneously being proud of and exhilarated by her sales prowess.
“Cookie Queens” is directed by architect-turned-documentarian Alysa Nahmias (“Unfinished Spaces”). She’s made an entertaining and interesting film that’s diversely, well and wisely cast concerning an $800 million dollar business. While it’s critical of the Girl Scouts and their tactics to some extent it probably could’ve had more teeth still.
Qualitatively, I can’t say “Cookie Queens” is a Samoa or a Tagalong - it’s probably more of a Thin Mint - but it’s definitely better than the Scouts’ Caramel Chocolate Chip.