THIS "KID" DOESN'T QUITE ROCK
In 2021's Kid 90, the "kid" I guess is child actress Soleil Moon Frye. Frye was on a hit TV series titled Punky Brewster. I haven't heard from Soleil in quite some time and now she's resurfacing as a reflective 44-year-old. I also didn't realize that Frye was once involved in a romantic tryst with bad boy Charlie Sheen (who knew).
So yeah, Kid 90 is a documentary where people mumble, indulge, and pander. It's heavy on archive footage, heavy on zigzagging, heavy on F-bombs, and slight on narrative. Said footage is fascinatingly grainy yet gimmicky and plodding. Actors like David Arquette, Brian Austin Green, Mark-Paul Gosselaar, and Stephen Dorff show up to do present-day interviews about their relationship with Frye. It seems Soleil had a lot of Hollywood buddies despite being off the A-list since well, '88.
Showing 90s footage of teenage actors partying and revealing that 8 people associated with Moon Frye died at incredibly young ages (20-30 give or take), Kid 90 chronicles Soleil and her circle of friends through video, voice messages, pictures, and revealing diary notes. It's obvious that Soleil got permission from almost everyone involved. Otherwise there'd be no movie.
Kid 90 has Soleil Moon Frye's commitment and the stunted footage she accumulates over time is quite impressive. But hey, where's the story here? And where's the focus? And what are we the audience suppose to feel about Soleil?
Are we suppose to make out sympathy for her even though she's worth about $5 million? It depends on your views I guess. And is her plight about wanting the viewer to see something of yore suppose to make a statement? I'm not sure.
Kid 90 is not a vanity project per se. It just feels unnecessary and moot considering that Moon Frye never broke out of her Penelope shell. Mixed review "kiddo".
Written by Jesse Burleson
No comments:
Post a Comment