A group of friends struggle with dysfunctional families, and lack of prospects for a future in a small californian town. Their lives are centered around the skateboarding scene, and the suicide of their common friend Ken Park, or Krap Nek as the often called him. As with Larry Clarks previous films (
Kids, 1995 and
bully, 2001) this is a film that's more about capturing the individuals life situations than telling a story with a beginning and an end. The story is the daily life of these kids, or at least the short glimpse of it we get during the film. It's a times disturbing and uncomfortable to watch, but then again the gritty realism is what makes this interesting in the first place. The choice of using largely unknown actors for the young friends again works wonderfully.
The film's biggest drawback is the sheer level of dysfunctionality displayed, though. It's almost like a distilled version of everything you can think of as family disorders spread out on just the families of the four main roles. It's at times very close to becoming caricature rather than social realism.
I think this is a great film, and recommend it warmly. Be warned though, if you're disgusted by body fluids or genitals, you may not have a good time.
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SocialRealism
