Rarely have I watched a feature-length documentary that felt so stretched out that it felt like the movie equivalent of messing around with the margins of an essay to try and maximize the shortage of viable content. Bama Rush is ostensibly about a group of young women competing to join various sororities at the University of Alabama, a school famous for its Greek life and the sordid and storied histories. You might reasonably think that the documentary formula would be to follow a small number of girls applying, likely four or five, and to use this as a jumping off point to explore the toxic history of Greek life, especially the racist and segregationist history for Southern institutions of higher learning. You would also likely assume that we would follow the highs and lows of these women and use them to examine modern-day sexism and the threat of sexual violence that many women endure on college campuses and beyond. You would assume, again naturally, that the filmmakers would have a genuine interest in investigating their topic and interrogating it and the people involved for better understanding and reflection. You would not expect the movie to abandon almost all of its many points of interest to then become about how one woman living with alopecia is the same as rushing for a sorority. Because why would you ever expect that from a film called Bama Rush?

Whether it was the original design or by the inconvenient needs of filling a feature, director Rachel Fleit (Introducing, Selma Blair) inserts herself awkwardly into her story. She shares her history of living with alopecia and being the “bald girl” and having a secret to hide, how nervous she was to appear like all the other girls, and then she says, directly to the camera, “So… I feel like I rushed too.” No, no you didn’t. The barest connection that Fleit is using here is general insecurity about being accepted. That’s it. By that very generalized notion, you can connect anything to the topic of rushing a sorority. Hey, you ever feel like you had a bad hair day? You rushed too. Hey, you ever feel like your clothes were outdated? You rushed too. Hey, you ever worry you had too much hair on your toes? You rushed too. This is ridiculous. Fleit’s personal struggles with her condition could be worthy of a documentary all her own, using her personal connection to the topic to explore alopecia in general and the social pressures over women’s hair. There’s a deep dive there. You could pair it as a double-feature with Chris Rock’s Good Hair. However, making your sorority documentary about you and an unrelated topic just smacks of opportunism and narcissism. I’m not downplaying the pain this woman felt about being different and having a secret. It just doesn’t belong in this movie when it’s supposed to be about other people not named Rachel Fleit.

Ignoring the many tangents about Fleit and her personal ails, Bama Rush also fails at even exploring its actual intended topic. Southern sororities are a rich tapestry to explore America’s racist traditions and histories, especially at the University of Alabama, but this topic only gets the most cursory of mentions. The same with the topic of The Machine, a would-be conspiracy of rich and powerful people influencing campus decisions and seemingly a shadowy cabal behind everything and nothing. I’m not disputing that something like this may exist, although whether it’s so organized and codified I would question, but Fleit doesn’t do anything to explore this facet. Talking to subjects currently attending the university is a limited pool of experiences. It’s shocking that she doesn’t interview former members who could talk about their complacency and can detail what this order dictated with specific examples. It’s also shocking that Fleit is following a group of women and several of them end up drugged from a campus party and the movie shrugs this off in such horrifying ambivalence. The girl being interviewed even says this is the third time she’s been roofied. How does a filmmaker not devote more screen time to this than wigs?

For a movie that can explore the questions of race, class, privilege, tradition, and sexual identity, it instead is a poorly composed movie that neglects to scrutinize any topic for more than fleeting glances. There’s a reason that a solid tenth of this movie is simply made up of TikTok videos supplied by the Bama Rush hashtag. In fact, even that angle, examining the vicarious entertainment and investment of adult strangers over whether or not these women broadcasting their sorority applications could be a worthy topic to touch upon social media’s strengths and ills, a voyeuristic hunger for manufactured realities. Instead, Bama Rush gives you a little of everything and a lot of nothing beyond the director’s unrelated experiences.

Nate’s Grade: D+