It’s a scary time to be a young person in the UK at the moment. It’s a scary time to be anyone, but it must be particularly worrying to be leaving school without any clear prospects and fighting for a future without the experience of a previous career. Chris Foggins’ debut film goes quite a way towards eroding any sympathy we may have with his depiction of vacuous young, carefree Bohemian types living a hedonistic existence in London, with money seemingly not a concern. An anthem for doomed youth this is not.
Will Poulter’s Jack is our entrance point into this world. When he meets and falls for Evelyn (Alma Jodorowsky) he is invited to meet her and her friends. It isn’t long before he’s drawn into their close-knit inner circle of constant clubs and parties, and he drifts away from his old pals and the life his parents had mapped out for him.
Kids in Love is evocatively shot with a dreamy, soft focus seemingly intended to evoke a fairytale yearning in the young, and wistful nostalgia for a misspent youth in older viewers. There is a certain charm in the curiously chaste interaction between the members of the group. There is always the heady tang of sex, but apart from Evelyn’s relationship with her boyfriend and Jack’s love rival, Milo (who has something of a peripheral role within the gang for reasons that become apparent), any liaisons involve an outsider. Foggins makes a small budget of around $450,000 stretch impressively, and there is genuine affectionate chemistry between rising star Poulter and Jodorwosky. Superficially it could be quite enjoyable, and there is definitely a demographic who will love it.
However, although it is obviously a fable of wish fulfilment, albeit with an edge – there’s always the lurking knowledge that for Jack, this can’t last – it quickly becomes irksome in the extreme. The flighty, flaky Evelyn is simply chief Manic Pixie Dream Girl of an entire troupe of Manic Pixie Dream People; or simply, bastards if you’re above the age of twenty four. The affected eccentricity and whimsy (yes, a ukulele does make an appearance, how did you know?) grates like a million beautifully manicured nails down the blackboard menu of an artisanal cupcake shop.
As for the script; here simply isn’t an original pulse in the entire film. Writers and stars Sebastian de Souza and Preston Thompson have a way with wry dialogue, but there isn’t a single second where you’re in doubt what will happen next. A darker avenue involving Milo’s murky dealings is glanced at but doesn’t go anywhere, and the film simply peters out to a conclusion that may inject some realistic ambiguity, but doesn’t really satisfy dramatically.
Kids in Love (even the title is fairly irritating) is evidence of some emerging talents, but more work is required to find an original voice.