Review : Kidulthood

Kidulthood :  A day in the life of a group of troubled 15-year-olds growing up in west London.


Hey Everyone

Welcome to my next update in my films blog. Kidulthood, is drama but a drama focused on the lives of troubled 15 year olds. In the middle of their teens, there not kids. not quite adults which explains the word 'kidulthood' it's in the middle basically.

So the film is a conjunction of many, many story lines. your main character is Sam played by Noel Clarke who also wrote the script. Which I have no problem with someone writing and starring in their own film is quite ingenious and flexible and in my opinion makes it more fun to them. Rather than read off a script someone else has written Noel gets a chance to play a character he created and perform using the words that he wrote.

Anyway the structure of this film varies of going back and forth between several characters, all living the same day and all the various intertwined stories eventually come together to form an hour and a half long film. What I love about Kidulthood so much is that it's proper drama, the pure core and grit of is very real. All the characters in it, have an attitude and act chavy. Stuff like 'blud' and 'are you dizzy?' are both very contemperate means of dialect and some of the characters like Sam speak in that way. There's also enough time in there to thrown in some back story and mini subplots to keep the drama going and keep us interested.

I do think, even though it is a drama it is a bit too contemperate in places. The seriousness of it does tend to get the better of itself and in the end the film becomes a bit too serious and quite dark, especially in the final moments. It's still good but my critic is that had this film been a little longer, I would of liked there to have been a bit more time to cover up the loose ends which were given in the end as freeze frames and information text which is a nice touch, but would of been better to see them acted out or have something more given to it.

In terms of reexamining 'Kidulthood' it is a drama, and doesn't try to be anything but a drama, and believe me it is a drama there's not getting away from it. It's an honest down the line, deep drama which is true to it's meaning of showing a day in the life of some troubled 15 year old fictional teenagers, though the characters are fictional the things they face are not fictional, the issues raised in this film are very real and relatable and I guess that's why the drama runs away with itself slightly and takes on an overpowering feel in it's ending where the viewer reaction is 'woah... that was good'. 7/10