Kid-Thing
Festival Favorites
D: David Zellner; with Sydney Aguirre, Susan Tyrrell, Nathan Zellner, David Zellner

Local filmmakers David and Nathan Zellner’s first feature since 2008’s Goliath breaks several conventions. It opens with a demolition derby, but it isn’t a comedy. It stars a child, but no one “comes of age.” It follows a punk kid who steals candy from the gas station, but scrap any ideas about a freckle-faced boy in a baseball cap – the punk in question is a little blond girl named Annie (Aguirre). And the film features a lazy, indifferent father (Nathan Zellner), but he isn’t a total jerk. (At times, he’s even half likable.) When Annie stumbles upon a woman trapped in a well, her dad can’t be bothered to get out of bed, leaving Annie to decide what to do in a world without conscience. With a strong soundtrack by Austin’s the Octopus Project and beautiful shots of otherwise common places, Kid-Thing organically personalizes an old fable by surrendering the narrative to its protagonist.

Friday, March 16, 1:30pm, Paramount; Saturday, March 17, 5pm, SXSatellite: Alamo Slaughter

This article appears in March 16 • 2012.

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