# Kids (1995)

### reviewed by
Ted Prigge

    KIDS (1995)
    A Film Review by Ted Prigge
    Copyright 1997 Ted Prigge

    Director: Larry Clark
    Writer: Harmony Korine
    Starring: Leo Fitzpatrick, Chloe Sevigny, Justin Pierce

I think I like the ideals behind Larry Clark's "Kids" more than the actual movie. Being amongst the generation that Clark is compaining about (actually more like bitching), I can first hand say that my generation is rude, self-absorbed, uncautionary, and that we mostly feel invincible most of the time. We do drugs, drink a lot, and have tons of sex, sometimes unprotected (condoms being a global franchise instead of a means of real protection these days). What Larry Clark does is totally overexaggerate the problem, hinting it as apocalyptic, offering no solution and no hope. It's a boring, uncomfortable, one-dimensional film.

"Kids" has no real plot, which is okay, except one small one: Jennie (Chloe Sevigny, who apparently goes to the same college as I do) finds out she is HIV-positive, despite having had relations with only one guy: Telly (Leo Fitzpatrick), a slack-jawed schmuck of a kid who talks like he's mentally retarded...yet is still the resident Cassanova. So she goes around the Big Apple, going to people's houses, attending parties, etc, in hopes of finding him and telling him before he beds someone else.

The film is filled with scenes of young teenagers having sex, fooling around, drinking, doing lot of drugs, stealing, beating innocent men to near-death with skateboards, swimming in underwear, talking casually about sex (and how condoms make your penis shrink), and all that. It's filled completely with this stuff, and there is no one out there who's the voice of reason, hope, or even common sense. Even the girl who seems intelligent, and who's parents' strictness with her might have paid off, is easily seduced by the moronic Telly, and gives up her virginity way too easily for someone she's structured to be. And Jennie is stupid enough to "accidentally" take something which prohibits her from moving quickly enough to stop Telly from sleeping with more chicks. The things the kids do in this movie are as plot devices, not really because they're that way.

Sure, some parts are very good. I liked Chloe Sevigny as a whole. She's really the only very good part of it, acting wonderfully, and showing a lot of stored-up emotion. I liked some of the other actresses, and even the script sounds kind of real now and then. A lot of the time, though, it sounds so fake and fabricated that any "grittiness" it tries to present is lost. I also liked how the scene where Telly is screwing his last girl for the evening (there are two in the same day), it felt scarier than the first one since you knew that he was HIV-positive, and this innocent little virgin was contracting it as well.

But that's about all that's good about this film. It's view on the subject is completely naive and never backed-up. Larry Clark, who has done photographs of kids in the city, claims to know exactly what kids these days are like. He thinks that they're all overly-precocious, naive, and just plain stupid. He needs to go back and do some more research. He has taken a problem with the world, tried to sell it by overexaggerating it, and slaps on a weak story. Larry wants this to be a satire.

But what Larry forgets is that a weak story can take away from the message. A strong story, on the other hand, can be constructed in such a way that it backs up the story well, as in such cases as Kubrick's masterpieces "Dr. Strangelove" and "A Clockwork Orange," which are two of the best examples on how to make a satire.

Not only is the film un-focused, naive, and weak, but it also never really identifies or explores the problem. Is it that the kids are having too much sex? That they think they're invincible? And if so, why is that? Are they're parents uncaring? Were they raised by bad role models on television? We do see a scene dealing with a parent who's main problem is she's breat-feeding in front of two horny teenage boys. But it never really explores anything into the problem(s) dealing with kids. It remains totally one-sided on the topic, and all of the characters are crap since Larry Clark has nothing but sophomoric pretention towards them.

The ending is pretty good, albeit very contrived. There is a part which is tossed in JUST so this can happen, kind of weakening the effect.

"Kids" has been critically acclaimed by some, and pissed on by others (including myself). It's been called "a masterpiece," " a wake-up call to the world," and even received two thumbs up from Siskel and Ebert. But unlike most of the haters of this film, I was not offended by the fact that teenagers were shown having sex, doing drugs, drinking, etc. I would never give a film a bad rating for such superficial reasons as that. To me, as a part of the generation Larry is blasting, I think it's a very flawed film. If I were to construct a "gritty satire on the decadence of the youth in America," I'd probably do it a lot differently.

Larry Clark, however, has constructed it in an un-focused, and completely ignorant fashion. It's uncomfortable to watch in the worst way, and unentertaining in the most annoying way. The film has good intentions, but good intentions does not a good film make.

    MY RATING (out of 4): **

Homepage at: http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Hills/8335/

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