Note: This review was originally published during Sundance 2024. We are republishing it because Finding Mavis Beacon It's already in theaters.
With a good dose of sentiment and extravagance, the Sundance documentary Finding Mavis Beacon It follows two young black women who set out to find the original model for Mavis Beacon teaches typingIf you touched a computer during the 1980s or 1990s, there's a good chance Mavis helped you get to grips with a keyboard. Or at least, you might remember her from the original 1987 show cover: a smiling, elegant black woman dressed in a cream-colored suit. She embodied style and professional poise; it was as if you could be just as capable as her if you just bought that program.
It's no spoiler to say that “Mavis Beacon” didn't actually exist: it was a marketing idea dreamed up by a bunch of white guys in Silicon Valley. But the show's cover star was Real: Her name was Renee L'Esperance, a Haitian model who was discovered while working at Saks Fifth Avenue in Los Angeles. After her image helped make Mavis Beacon teaches typing Following great success, he retreated from the spotlight and reportedly returned to retire in the Caribbean.
The documentary's director and screenwriter, Jazmin Jones, and her collaborator, Olivia McKayla Ross, take those basic details and set out to find L'Esperance like a pair of digital detectives. From an abandoned office in the Bay Area, surrounded by tech, an array of art pieces and images of influential black women, they trace L'Esperance's timeline, follow leads and even organize a spiritual ceremony to try to connect with the model.
I won't say whether the couple actually ends up finding L'Esperance because it's the journey that makes Finding Mavis Beacon It was a joy to watch. Jones and Ross grew up with the typing program and felt an affinity with the character of Mavis Beacon. It was the first program to feature a black woman prominently on the cover (a move that reportedly caused some vendors to cut back on orders), so it made the tech world seem like a place where young black women could fit in. Beacon’s digital hands also appear on the screen, as if she were gently guiding fingers to the correct letters and position.
To help uncover more details about the whereabouts of Mavis Beacon, Jones and Ross set up A hotline and website for anyone to submit tips.Some of those calls appear in the film and make it clear that their digital presence inspired many people. The film opens with references to Beacon in culture, including one of my favorite bits from Abbott Elementary Schoolwhere Quinta Brunson's high-achieving teacher is too excited to spot the computer icon in the school crowd. It reminded me of my own childhood experience with Mavis Beacon teaches typingI spent free periods at school and free time at home trying to increase my typing speed. In high school, typing felt as natural as breathing. And yes, I would have been scared too if I had seen the real Beacon in person.
While the documentary doesn’t feel out of place at Sundance, which is known for its innovative projects, at times it also feels like a piece of experimental media destined for YouTube or an art show full of impossibly cool twentysomethings. (At one point, Ross attends a farewell ceremony for one of his friends’ dead laptops, held in an art space full of people dressed in white. That’s the kind of modern weirdness that will either make you dismiss this film — or make you want it even more.)
Jones shows us screen recordings of his own desktop, where he might be watching a TikTok alongside his notes. Instead of a full-screen video call with another person, we sometimes just see a FaceTime window (and occasionally that reflects Jones' own image looking at the screen). In Search of Mavis Beacon tells its story in a way that digital natives will find natural, without confining itself exclusively to screens like the film Searching.
As with many debut films, the film could use a little more storytelling polish. Jones and Ross's investigation stalls at several points, and we're often left adrift as they ponder their next steps. At times, the pair also seem to be too close to the story – or at least, that's what it seems like when we see Jones crying as she pleads to be reunited with L'Esperance.
But I would say that is also part of the charm of Finding Mavis BeaconJones and Ross aren’t true-crime podcast hosts looking to create content out of controversy. They’re young women who found solace in one of the few faces in the tech world who looked like them. With this film, Jones and Ross could be just as inspiring to a new generation of underrepresented techies.
