Watched the documentary Kid 90 on Hulu last night. The premise - Soliel Moon Frye, aka Punky Brewster - explores her experience of moving from child to teenager to adult during the 1990's by diving into her vast collection of of surprisingly intimate and personal homemade videos and journal entries. It includes clips of many other teenage actors and celebrities at the time - her co-hort and community - and contemporary interviews with those who made it to adulthood. Tragically, a number did not. It promises to be really interesting, personal, vulnerable and insightful. Unfortunately, it ends up being only minimally any of those things. Personal? Yes, absolutely. But not particularly insightful. It manages to be vulnerable and superficial at the same time. Like a Hollywood map of scars. I got this scar from the time that this happened and that scar from the time that that happened (oh my god we were so effed up but it was so amazing), and coming up next on the right...
It's too bad because she touches on so many things, so many deep veins that deserve exploring, so many things that I was willing to spend time exploring with her. But she never seems interested in exploring, just pointing things out. It's frustrating.
Toward the end, thinking back on the friends who tragically took their lives, she talks about how much she sees now that she missed twenty years ago. What she doesn't say is that she missed so much because she couldn't see very far outside herself. By the end I was left with the impression that she still can't.
Rather than exploring someone's journey with them, I instead just spent the last 90 minutes with someone while they waxed nostalgic over their old photo albums. And I still haven't gone grocery shopping.
It's too bad because she touches on so many things, so many deep veins that deserve exploring, so many things that I was willing to spend time exploring with her. But she never seems interested in exploring, just pointing things out. It's frustrating.
Toward the end, thinking back on the friends who tragically took their lives, she talks about how much she sees now that she missed twenty years ago. What she doesn't say is that she missed so much because she couldn't see very far outside herself. By the end I was left with the impression that she still can't.
Rather than exploring someone's journey with them, I instead just spent the last 90 minutes with someone while they waxed nostalgic over their old photo albums. And I still haven't gone grocery shopping.