Kid-Thing is a gut wrenching study of childhood alienation, loneliness and despair; layered with bleak humour. Annie, played by Sydney Aguirre, is an eleven year old girl living with her redneck father in rural Texas. Her days consist of skipping school, spending time consistently alone engaged in thoughtless petty destruction such as wrecking abandoned toilets and hurling cookie dough at cars.
Her Dad Marvin (Nathan Zellner, brother of the film’s director) is preoccupied with running his failing farm and drinking heavily. Marvin has no chance of success, the sight of him and his buddy Caleb scraping through a pile of lottery scratch cards to no avail sums up his situation in life. He’s no idea how to raise a daughter, and no real interest in doing so. Not because he’s a bad person, but because he’s dull minded. Annie asks how the writers know how to make life better which confuses him and he replies ‘They just do’.
Out in the woods one day, Annie is startled by eerie shouts for help coming from an old well shaft. At first she’s terrified and runs. Next day curiosity gets the better of her and she returns, with some food and drink. Annie discovers a woman named Ester (voiced by Susan Tyrrell), who remains out of sight the entire film, is trapped down the well. First off Annie asks if she’s the Devil, a reasonable question for a child hearing a voice from underground. A tense relationship builds between the two over time as Ester tries to get Annie to fetch help to get her free. It leads to a heart-breakingly tragic ending that has to be one of the most effective in cinema.
Director David Zellner (who also plays the role of ‘Caleb’) draws viewers into the confined universe inhabited by Annie and Marvin by using close camera shots at all times. We never get any panoramas or views of the wider world. Thus the audience share some of the character’s imprisoned existence. Heat parched, monotonous rural Texas life is shown in macro, reflecting Annie’s boring life. This boredom, along with acute loneliness gives birth to her unwittingly nihilistic behaviour; which finds ultimate expression in some of the most effective and brilliantly unsettling scenes of the movie.
We see a family preparing to celebrate the daughter’s birthday outside their house; a depressed looking Mother, a girl around Annie’s age who’s wheelchair bound and the Father. Party decorations festoon the property, bright colours clashing against sun bleached paint as if cheer is being determinedly forced into a sphere of gloom. The mother brings a cake, and then the father places two wrapped gifts on the table. When the adults go back inside, Annie suddenly appears; eyeing the girl with hostility and brandishing a baseball bat. She uses the bat to obliterate the cake, steals a present and runs off. Neither she nor the girl speak. When they come out and see the damage, both parents look utterly bewildered. Violence coming from an indefinable rage at the human condition is woven beautifully with black comedy; inescapable misery and pathos to set your spine tingling.
Sydney Aguirre does a sterling job as Annie. For someone so young she doesn’t seem to even notice the camera that is focussed on her for most of the 83 minutes. Her default sullen expression only cracks to display fear when she first hears Ester’s cries for help, and when she comes close to smiling whilst on a fairground ride. Aguirre thus convincingly demonstrates Annie’s crippled emotional being. For Annie has been dehumanised by the life she’s drifting through, with no meaningful relationships or developmental support. The title, Kid-Thing alludes to this state of affairs. Even though some of her behaviour is reprehensible, the viewer cannot help pitying Annie. She’s as trapped in her directionless, mediocre sphere of existence as Ester is trapped in the well. The viewer never sees Ester; David Zellner uses this to infect the audience with Annie’s early suspicion that Ester is demonic; tempting the young girl to her doom.
Kid-Thing delivers a punch to the soul that lingers long after the credits roll. It proves that there’s no need for convoluted plot, smart dialogue or frenetic pacing for a film to be infectiously watchable. I recommend you see it as soon as possible.
Cast: Sydney Aguirre, Nathan Zellner, Susan Tyrrell, David Zellner
Runtime: 83 mins
Country: US
Film Rating: 
