Kids In America
Sometimes a movie stops being what it is expected to be and becomes what it really wants to be. This rare event can be compared to the appearance of a blue moon. For instance, “Kids in America” is such a film. It breaks all the rules of Hollywood movies. Those so called “mindless high school comedies” are revealed for what they could have been if only they had some brains. The movie speaks to every kid who has ever thought differently from others, every kid with political ideas, every kid suspended for speaking their mind, every child whose article was censored in the school paper or who did something shocking during a talent show or actually believed everything idealistic teachers told him.
But I make it sound too serious when in fact this is also a biting comedy and romantic story where two teenagers fall in love while trying to recreate famous kisses from films through an experiment on themselves. They start with what he believes is the greatest movie kiss between John Cusack and Ione Sky in “Say Anything,” which lasts about three seconds in rain that falls so lightly you can hardly see it and when Holden (Gregory Smith) describes this moment to Charlotte (Stephanie Sherrin), she simply says “show me,” walking out into rain; eventually getting around longest kiss which always thought occurred between Cary Grant Ingrid Bergman “Notorious” but no according Jane Wyman Regis Toomey “You’re Army Now,” clocking at 185 seconds only someone working video store would know that!
Nobody’s stupid here either: not even Kelly (Nicole Richie), captain cheerleading squad; nor Principal Weller (Julie Bowen), medieval policy enforcer who scares people with her articulate arguments against anything contemporary; not even football coach or drama teacher once staged reading Oliver Stone’s Platoon without expletives Harvey Fierstein’s autograph; not even anatomy teacher lives his mom never seen naked body including own described by Holden. He says: “You know those teachers in school who don’t seem like they have ever had sex? Well, that’s because they haven’t with humans!”
Weller is doing her best to quell the rebellion; she’s running for superintendent, and really doesn’t want anything damaging her reputation. Unfortunately for her, the students (and their teachers) are way ahead of her, leading up to a hijacked pep rally in which Holden takes over the audiovisual hookup and plays a montage of straight kissing in the halls that leads directly into a protest against the expulsion of the gay student and sets up another one of those famous movie kisses.
“Kids in America” was directed by Josh Stolberg; he co-produced and co-wrote with Andrew Schaifer. They say it was inspired by actual events; one involved a girl who was thrown out of school after her journal was seized and read without her permission, while another saw a young lady expelled for wearing a “Barbie Is A Lesbian” T-shirt.
The film certainly has its anger at repression and discrimination masquerading as school policy down pat, but what surprised me most about it was how funny and entertaining they made this story. High schoolers have been so often portrayed as substance-abusing sex-crazed airheads that you’d think Hollywood is trying to tell them they’re as dumb as these movies make them look. “Kids In America,” though not nearly angry enough, is both a call to arms and an awful lot of fun.
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