Quartile rating: 7.5/10 · 1 rating
A group of bored, disaffected New York City teenagers spend a day skating, smoking, drinking, partying, deflowering virgins, and getting into fights.
Larry Clark's Kids is a genuinely singular piece of American independent cinema — its raw, quasi-documentary depiction of hedonistic NYC youth culture in the mid-90s feels utterly unlike anything before or since. The novelty is undeniable: Clark's unflinching, voyeuristic lens captures a world of teenage nihilism with disturbing authenticity, and the film's controversial subject matter (HIV, underage sex, drug abuse) is handled without moral editorializing, which was radical at the time. The ending — Telly unknowingly infecting yet another girl while Casper's chilling final line ('Jesus Christ, what happened?') hangs in the air — is genuinely haunting and thematically devastating. The non-professional cast delivers naturalistic performances that serve the film's aesthetic, though their rawness is by design rather than polish. The cinematography by Eric Edwards is gritty and handheld, immersive but not particularly inventive beyond its docudrama verité approach. The plot is essentially a day-in-the-life structure that prioritizes atmosphere over narrative architecture, which works for the film's purposes but limits its dramatic complexity.