Kids Movie Review

A very grim look at the lives of depressingly young children. Telly (Leo Fitzpatrick) is terminally incapable of zipping it up. He will succumb to AIDS eventually but he doesn't know it yet. However, Jennie (Chloe Sevigny), who's tested HIV positive, DOES know it. She was among a long line of virgins who had sex for the first time with Telly. Telly seduces a very young blonde (Sarah Henderson) at the start of Kids, and picks up Darcy (Yakira Peguero) by picture's end. The tragic irony is Telly probably enjoys bragging about his virginal conquests to his friend Gasper (Justin Pierce) even more than he digs the sex. Kids shows a parentless world where a gang of homophobic, racist kids drift through the streets of Manhattan, and where children of 10 turn on and/or drink themselves into a stupor. Harmony Korine was just 19 when she wrote Kids, and Larry Clark was over 50 when he directed it.

1995 90m/C Leo Fitzpatrick, Justin Pierce, Chloe Sevigny, Rosario Dawson, Sarah Henderson, Harold Hunter, Yakira Peguero, Joseph Knafelmacher; D: Larry Clark; W: Harmony Korine; C: Eric Alan Edwards; M: Louis Barlow. Independent Spirit Awards ‘96: Debut Performance (Pierce); Nominations: Independent Spirit Awards ‘96: Best First Feature, Best Supporting Actress (Sevigny). VHS, LV, Closed Caption, DVD