MIXTAPE

MIXTAPE is a coming-of-age story streaming on Netflix about an orphaned middle school student who finds a mixtape her deceased parents had and sets off to learn all the songs on it, hoping to piece together more of their love story. The story in MIXTAPE is funny and heartfelt, but it has a mixed worldview with conflicting Romantic and morally uplifting content, brief foul language, two verbal references to drugs, a mention of teenage pregnancy, a bar scene, and references to spirits in a cemetery scene.

Beverly Moody is a middle school student in Spokane, Washington on the eve of Y2k in 1999. Beverly has lived with her grandmother, a USPS deliverywoman, ever since her parents died in a car accident when she was a baby. One day, Beverly finds a mixtape her parents had. She sets off to learn all the songs on it, hoping to piece together more of their love story.

During Beverly’s venture to uncover more about the songs on the tape, she befriends a newcomer to her neighborhood named Ellen, who also attends Beverly’s school. Beverly goes into the local record store to talk to the store worker, a guy named Anti, about how Sony Walkman’s work. In the meantime, too, Ellen and Beverly make friends with a loner girl in their class named Nicky who happens to know a lot about music.

Even though Beverly seems to be putting some pieces together, she feels as though she can’t get the full picture about her parents without talking to her grandmother, Gail, who always changes the subject about them. However, Gail has a lot on her mind too. With the media pushing scare tactics about Y2k, she’s worried her lifesavings for Beverly’s college fund will disappear come the New Year.

As Beverly’s quest continues, will she find the version of her parents she’s desires, or the version she needs to know?

For viewers who remember the late 1990s, MIXTAPE is a fun nostalgic watch from a pop culture standpoint. The music is of the times and will transport viewers to memories of their own. The story is heartfelt, funny and dramatic. The movie follows the traditional pacing of a coming-of-age story arc, and the acting is pretty good.

MIXTAPE has a mixed worldview with Romantic and moral elements. The movie romanticizes the life of Beverly’s parents through music, but it’s rooted in her desire to know them better. Also, the movie has positive themes of friendship and taking care of one’s relatives when something tragic happens.

MIXTAPE still requires much discernment, however. For instance, middle schoolers have a friendship with a record store worker, who (unknown to their parents) gets them into a bar at night by lying so they can hear music from the mixtape. In other instances, though, he behaves like a protector over them and warns them against “stranger danger.” Also, one short scene shows middle schoolers confessing some secrets to spirits in a cemetery. MIXTAPE also contains several light obscenities and profanities, two verbal references to drugs, and a mention of teenage pregnancy.

Overall, therefore, MOVIEGUIDE® advises caution for older children, including teenagers but especially younger teenagers and older pre-adolescents. Young children should not watch MIXTAPE.