Director Crystal Moselle based Skate Kitchen on NYC’s eponymous crew of young female skateboarders, who actually play fictionalized versions of themselves here. That real-life casting lends the film a documentary-esque quality: the girls’ bantering chemistry and die-hard loyalty feel warmly authentic, and the movie would be well worth a watch just to bask in this vibe alone.

The Skate Kitchen girls are an eclectic bunch, but what’s so refreshing — and therapeutic — about the film is that they’re also deeply, instinctively empathetic. These misfits don’t just tolerate but celebrate one another’s uniqueness and respect their differing boundaries (the way the girls and the movie treat shyness as a feature rather than a flaw to be resolved is particularly moving). What’s more, in its own low-key way, Skate Kitchen is an inspirational watch for its portrait of young women building the sanctuary they need themselves — not just in a largely male subculture but on a broader canvas, too. Rather than skulk anxiously on the sidelines, the girls use skating to carve out a space of their own in New York, a way to make the big, scary city feel warm and intimate. Amidst all the steezy ollies and clean rail grinds, these might just be the greatest tricks they pull off.

It’s impossible to credit just one of the film’s departments with the best thing about Skate Kitchen: its gorgeous, infectious sense of liberation. The girls’ natural chemistry is part of what makes the movie feel so free and warmly enveloping, and so is Moselle’s direction, which takes cues from the girls in its empathetic approach. Shabier Kirchner’s thrillingly immersive cinematography, too, puts us right alongside the girls as they weave through the city’s streets and turn a concrete jungle into their very own playground. While the film’s grappling with tricky teen emotions is also one of its strengths, it’s the way that all of these aforementioned elements combine to give the film a free and easy vibe that makes Skate Kitchen feel like an oasis you want to keep returning to.