Review of Kids (2011) by Brett C — 01 Nov 2014

Review In A Nutshell:

Kids supposedly is a reflection of contemporary youth; showing us a disintegration of social intelligence and ambition. We are given individuals who lack professional and personal ambition; while at the same time urging to prove their peers that they are sophisticated and mature individuals. They simply want to feed their ego, creating meaning out of something unfulfilling.

One could simply view the characters of this film as misguided figures or lacking in any sense of direction from their parents, but I actually felt that Larry Clark's Kids is striving for something more biographical. As I have said previously, the film attempts to create a mirror reflection of today's troubled youth but it lacks in deep insight. Clark, failed to show its audience hidden shadings of his "true-to-life" characters that would have us see their situation in a different light. How we see these figures from a distance creates the same effect when we watch them from up close.

Though the film retains consistently throughout a documentarian feel to its photography and direction, but Clark was able to provide small doses of drama, particularly Jennie's character. Jennie symbolises as the living victim of this destructive culture. Clark shows us the dire consequences of even the smallest contact with this culture, but we never see Jennie accumulating feelings of revenge but instead searches for a sense of closure, but as she gets closer and closer to her goal or destination, the higher the risk of her getting hurt again. If Kids instead opted to follow her story, then I probably would have had a different but more enjoyable experience.

The performances in this film felt improvised, but still within the context of the script; clearly Clark wants his performances to be a somewhat accurate representation of these self-absorbed kids but not to the point where they seem tamed and too on point. He lets his actors breathe and luckily brings natural and effective performances from some of his cast; with only some reaching to the point of obnoxious and frustratingly fake. The leading actor in this film, Leo Fitzpatrick, was plain annoying to watch. He is supposed to come off as this self-confident and a genuinely "thirsty" individual but I simply saw him as this poser who thinks he is on top of the world. I also found his lisp as very immature and distracting, not to say that this applies to everyone but simply him.

Kids' impact on our minds and souls seems to deteriorate as time passes, due to its one-dimensional characters and the lack of a nostalgic element; but Clark surprisingly brought something valuable with one of the characters of the film which was actually enough to keep me from hating this.