Kids
Directed by Larry Clark
- drama
- crime
The story
A group of bored, disaffected New York City teenagers spend a day skating, smoking, drinking, partying, deflowering virgins, and getting into fights.
What it’s like
Washed-out summer daylight and handheld, documentary-style camerawork give Kids the feel of a hot, sticky New York afternoon seen through a camcorder someone forgot to put down. The palette is sun-bleached and flat, with skate-park concrete, bodega fluorescents and cramped apartment interiors that look lived-in and unglamorous, and the soundtrack leans on mid-nineties hip-hop and punk that spills out of boomboxes and stereos rather than swelling under the action. The pacing is loose and aimless, drifting between long unbroken scenes of talk, horseplay and posturing, so the mood is restless boredom that tips abruptly into something ugly. Its emotional register is cold and unsentimental, a sort of sun-bleached unease; its young people are lost and careless, and the film watches them without offering redemption. Intensity is high: explicit sexual content involving underage characters, drug and alcohol use, frequent street fights and sharp, bruising violence, and a dark HIV thread that hangs over the story. This is not gentle viewing. It suits viewers who want a raw, unflinching look at adolescence and urban youth culture, not a comfort watch.
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