CINEMA: FESTIVAL OF LOST CHILDREN

• Share

(2 of 2)

These little post-Lubitsch touches have Miramax concerned that Kids, scheduled to open July 21, may get an NC-17 rating, which would mean that officially most of the film's young cast could not see it. The Walt Disney Co., Miramax's corporate parent, will not release NC-17 films; so Weinstein, who paid a risky $3.5 million for the $1.5 million-budgeted film, is ready to set up a separate company to distribute Kids. There will be, he vows, no scissoring to get an R rating. As for Clark, he proclaims himself mystified by the clamor: "There's very little nudity in the film. It's just that no one wants to confront the fact that in 1995, kids are having sex."

In Kids, kids have easy sex; they have potent drugs; they seem to have total freedom from parental discipline. What they don't have is fun. Screwing around has become mandatory, and thus joyless, like house chores or homework. A truly radical, dangerous movie about teens would show the lure of the wild life while avoiding the twin tones of sensationalism and sentimentality. Clark's film doesn't do that. And that's the matter with Kids, and the other teen films at Cannes.