Cuties (2020) review

Amy (Fathia Youssouf), an immigrant from Senegal who lives with her emotionally-fragile single mother and whose father is getting ready to marry another woman, weasels her way into being friends with a group of 'hip' girls who like to dance very ... provocatively, considering their age (they're eleven years old).  There's been a slew of backlash against Netflix for releasing this, and while it was written and directed by a female who (I would hope) had the right intentions, the reality is that criticizing the iPhone generation (who use Likee and TikTok to create lewd videos of themselves) for self-exploitation, though timely, is negated when the same thing you take issue with you do yourself: there are entirely too many close-ups of crotches and rear-ends and an uncomfortable subplot in which Amy posts a photo of her lady parts (because she thinks that makes her an "adult").  Warning girls about the dangers of social media and urging them to protect themselves is definitely a good thing - and the cast here does, in fact, "act their age" - but a different approach was needed (especially when this is presumably made for a younger demographic but has a TV-MA rating).