Product: Kids (1995)
Rating: 2.0
SHOCKING
In a way the purpose of this film is to shock. And it did. The cavalier and casual attitude toward sex and drugs is shocking enough on its own. However, the fact that the kids (yes, kids) indulging in these more decadent and dangerous things is positively sickening. I heard a lot about this movie for years, but I did not see it until recently. I feel sure that I would have been horrified by this film whether I had been a teenager or a mid-twenties (and sheltered) woman that I am today. The real tragedy is when a girl (Chloe Sevigny) discovers that she is HIV positive as a result of one sexual encounter with a guy, Telly, who has a reputation for going around and having sex with all the girls he can convince. And convince them he does, with smooth talking, lies and a lot of persuasion over the girls' clear reluctance. Sevigny's character is the most likeable as the innocent whose life comes apart at its fragile seams when she accompanies a much more promiscuous friend to a clinic to be tested. Sevigny is tested only as a favour to the friend. Her friend is HIV negative. Sevigny then wanders through the city to confront Telly, who is, as the film progresses, deflowering yet another young girl. When Sevigny finally locates him at a party in the midst of having sex with his latest conquest, she passes out and another friend rapes her while she is unconscious, having no idea what he is getting himself into. Overall this film is just... shocking and horrifying. I don't even have the adjectives to describe how affecting this film is. I wish it were not so disturbing and so nonchalant. What can be said for the film, though, is that it told the story through the eyes of the kids and did not attempt to moralise, which will allow the audience to make up their own minds.