Mabel

Biracial Callie (Lexi Perkel) loves trees & plants and little else in Nicholas Ma's warm debut feature. Surly with her parents & intolerant of people who don't share her interests, she's also unhappy about changing middle schools after her family relocates. But as luck would have it, substitute teacher Ms. G (Judy Greer) is starting a botany unit in a high school science class, and Callie wangles her way in. Held rapt by Ms. G's lectures & online speeches, Callie develops an experiment raising chrysanthemums in darkness and is able to lure Agnes, her ebullient younger neighbor, into working on the project. Precocious, determined, and wryly funny, Callie is a unique person who leverages her love of botany to propel herself into adolescence.