I was very curious to see this film about a twelve-year-old American superstar who goes AWOL on the set of an absurdly over-the-top action flick being shot in Toronto (the boy plays the incorrigible son of the US President who must save America after his father is captured by terrorists), but it’s fairly derivative. I’m thinking Don McKellar hoped to make a satiric, cinematic indictment of a culture obsessed with erotic innocence (think Paddy Chayefsky filtered through James Kincaid), but such plans are tricky. How can you capture such a subject without falling pray to the very impulses you hope to critique? Indeed, though Taylor Brandon Burns is a petulant, spoiled brat—spurned on by a mother always looking for a bigger paycheck—what he really wants to be is a normal boy (what that exactly means is up for grabs). I guess the film never felt dangerous enough. Sure, the kid is an ugly American who—chastely—loses his virginity to a quasi-prostitute (on the set in a replica of the Oval Office), but McKellar and co-writer Michael Goldbach offer up little more than a pastiche of coming-of-age clichés masquerading as a character. And McKellar’s character—a former film studies professor now indie filmmaker who drives the rich and famous to work to put food on the table—is also problematic. Is he the voice of reason/father figure Taylor’s been looking for or is he simply looking for a star to hitch himself to (or does he just want to fuck Taylor’s mom)? Anyway . . . Dave Foley is a lot of fun. Kincaid acolytes will be sad to learn there are no bottoms on display, but there is a running joke concerning a Hollywood rumor involving goldfish and the boy’s ass, so I guess that will suffice.
I forgot this was coming out, but I do recall the middling reviews it got.
I like McKellar. He’s been dandy in the occasional role here and there (Waydowntown and Existenz), but even better are his earlier written/directed films. Highway 61 is a great strange road movie that never collapses into easy convention–my favorite bit is a seemingly-villainous character who moves through the picture ‘stealing people’s souls’ via polaroid. Last Night is less idiosyncratic, but not really anywhere near Hollywood; it’s an end of the world picture, and has great roles for Sandra Oh and David Cronenberg, in addition to McKellar.
I may still see this, but … I guess I won’t rush.
Yeah, I’ve seen Last Night. Not bad. Childstar looks good–is well shot, etc., but it doesn’t know if it wants to be a stringent satire, a rom/com or a coming of age narrative. Their is an odd little twist at the end that feels a bit subversive but it too is half-baked.
I certainly didn’t rush; just saw this. I think I liked it more than you. Your critique of the way it seems disjointedly full of many cliches… well, I agree somewhat; I also felt like the disjunctions kept the film pleasurably off-balance. The kid wasn’t bad, I enjoyed McKellar’s character’s failure to be a role model… I guess I found it fairly entertaining. Not as strong as some of his other films, but equally (perverse? maybe just Canadian?) off-kilter in its storytelling.