Product: Kids (1995)
Rating: 5.0
Old story, but superbly written and acted.
Okay, Kids often feels like a documentary. It's filmed in a very simple style, and the dialogue is so life-like that it feels unscripted. But it is scripted, of course, and the film is somewhat stylized. For all its alleged obscenity, it actually takes a fairly conservative stance. Casual sex is equated with AIDS, which of course is equated with death. It's a classic cautionary tale, just written and acted in a hyper-real fashion. Of course, that is what makes it so effective. This film probably did more to promote abstinence than all the sermons in the world.It's interesting to note that, for all his amorality, Telly actually has a bit of the romantic in him. His justification for seducing virgins is that they will remember him as long as they live. There's something of the decadent aesthetic in that. And, as strange as it may seem, it's touchingly naive. In fact, it's the girls, not Telly, who are the most cynical about sex. Their conversation between themselves would have dashed all of his illusions, had he been around to hear it. It is a very perceptive, if unpleasant observation on the film's part. This sort of attention to reality is what makes it so compelling.