Chelsea Alexandra
Trash Baby was one of the first screenings to open the SXSW Film & TV Festival on March 7 this year, and it will be a movie that will hit some in their core. The film masterfully recreates the early 2000s. Sour Blue Razz Four Lokos, Maybelline Great Lash mascara (the iconic pink and green tube), and well-worn issues of Seventeen magazine featuring Paris Hilton transport us back to a time and place so familiar. It is a coming-of-age film that will resonate with people who grew up in the early 2000s, a turbulent time for young girls especially who just wanted to be seen, heard and ultimately cool. This directorial debut from Jacy Mairs doesn’t just tell a story, she creates a moment in time, one that feels deeply personal yet universally recognizable.
Stevie (Esther Harrison) is twelve going on thirteen. She lives in Pine Park with her single mother (Brianna Paige Dague) and her younger brother (Wally Moore). It is the middle of summer, and Stevie spends most of the time hanging out and watching over her brother while her mother works. They run through the trailer park with the other trailer park kids, enjoying the days without school.
One day, Stevie and her best friend Maria end up meeting Edie (Chloe Kramer), Stevie’s neighbor. Edie is older and in Stevie’s eyescooler. The two preteen girls end up spending time with Edie, painting nails and doing make-up. Innocent hangs on Edie’s porch eventually leading to Edie introducing Stevie to her friends, the trailer park dwellers who are too old for Stevie to be hanging out with. In this group of dwellers is Brad (Eddie Lee Wollrabe), an older guy who has known Stevie since she was five years old. Brad watches over Stevie and how the group interacts with her.
Stevie thinks she is about to have it all, cool friends, a cool boyfriend, and leave all her childish things behind. However, that soon comes to a halt when her innocence is completely shattered when she sees the grim reality of what it is really like to hand out with the dwellers of Pink Park.
Trash Baby is a film about the illusion that growing up is glamorous, that being older means being free, and that certain friendships will make us whole. As Stevie learns, some doors, once opened, can never be closed again. This film is a reminder of that moment when childhood ends—not in some grand, dramatic gesture, but in the quiet realization that the world is not as kind as we once thought. The people in Stevie’s world are unsettlingly real. Edie is the kind of girl we all knew—the one who introduced us to things we weren’t ready for, the big sister figure who seemed like she had it all figured out but was just as lost as the rest of us.
What sets Trash Baby apart is its refusal to romanticize or soften the realities of being a young girl trying to grow up too quickly. In her first major role as Stevie, Harrison delivers a beautifully quiet and deeply authentic portrayal of girlhood. With subtle gestures and unspoken moments, she captures the complexities of growing up. The writing is sharp and unfiltered, hitting hard in moments of quiet devastation. One monologue from Wollrabe’s Brad lands like a punch to the stomach, encapsulating the film’s themes of disillusionment and the painful transition into adulthood. And Kramer’s Edie—her presence is magnetic, but it’s a single, offhand line that will fill anyone who has been told they are not good enough with hope, maybe even moving them to tears.
Although Trash Baby delves into the harrowing realities of growing up, it also serves as a celebration of Trailer Park kids, honoring their resilience, friendships, and the unique sense of community. Rather than simply portraying hardship, the film embraces the beauty found in these experiences, capturing the raw, unfiltered essence of youth in a world often overlooked.
Growing up in places like Pine Park or small, tight-knit lower-class neighborhoods where everyone knows everyone, it’s hard not to see yourself in Trash Baby. The characters Mair craft feel familiar. They are the people we saw every day in the neighborhood, the people we in some ways aspired to be. Die is the girl who felt like a big sister, the one you shared your first blackout with. This film is steeped in nostalgia, evoking a place that, when you return, isn’t quite there anymore—or at least, not the way you remember it.
