Movie Review: In ‘Girls State,’ Missouri teens start a mock government

What would an all-female government look like in the U.S.? But for the ambitious high school students in the Girls State program, given the spotlight in a new documentary arriving on Apple TV+ Friday, it’s something they can play at for at least a week. Six years ago, documentary filmmakers Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss brought their cameras to the Boys State camp in Texas in the aftermath of a historic and, according to that 2018 class, embarrassing stunt in which their predecessors voted to secede from the U.S. By the time the filmmakers were finishing that effort, they were already thinking about a follow up focused on the girls’ program. In “Girls State” they move away from Texas and to Missouri, and give voice to several midwestern teens during a heightened week in which a draft of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion nationwide, had leaked to the press. “Girls State,” an Apple TV+ release streaming Friday, has not been rated by the Motion Picture Association but should be appropriate for most audiences.