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“The Kid Detective,” written by Evan Morgan, takes place in a world where we rarely get to laugh at ourselves. Willowbrook is a small town where everyone seems to know everyone else, and wacky crimes involving the Red Shoe Gang are occasionally committed there. A time capsule has been stolen, and a school fundraiser box has gone missing as well. As a result of his efforts, one of the town’s more bizarre fixtures, an amateur sleuth by the name of Abe Applebaum gained not only fame, but also his own downtown office and a lifetime supply of free ice cream from the town’s favorite candy shop, Hepburn’s. However, just as there is no footage of the town’s legendary potato festival, which is only mentioned in passing, there are no jokes that should be included.
It’s an appropriate setting for a quirky dirge that knows when to be funny, but doesn’t know how to capitalize on the opportunity. During the first act, Morgan’s script examines the innocence of youth through the eyes of an aspiring teen detective who is taken seriously by both children and adults alike. It’s somewhere between Lucy’s psychological advice in “Peanuts” and calling the police that Abe used to provide a service from a treehouse (until someone chopped it down, one of the film’s few amusing asides). He’s worked on more than 200 cases.
Things began to change for Abe and Willowbrook several years ago when his assistant Gracie, the mayor’s daughter, vanished without leaving a trace. As a result of his failure to deal with the case, Abe has failed his community, a disappointment that has been exacerbated by his fragile ego and disinterest in growing up. Years later, Abe is presented with his first murder case, which is brought to him by a high school student named Caroline (Sophie Nélisse), which provides him with an unexpected opportunity for redemption. After her boyfriend was assassinated, Abe was forced to return to the beat of interviewing goofy teenagers and unraveling a web of pills, candy bars, secret crushes, and more. However, even with all of these initially outlandish pieces, the personalities are fairly straightforward, and the mystery appears to be largely insignificant.
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In this episode, Abe is dealing with the consequences of his maturation as well as Gracie’s case, and Brody plays the character in a constant state of haze, shuffling through a mission that matters to him for a job that is still cartoonish. He’s haunted by his past as a failure, and yet the character doesn’t reveal much about himself in the present, aside from revealing that he’s familiar with “old tricks,” such as asking questions that cause people to reveal more information than they intended. It fails to impress, especially given the numerous opportunities the script provides to highlight his inflated ego while Nélisse tags along with him on his investigations. Actually, Abe serves as the straight man to a script that is struggling to figure out how funny it wants to be on its own terms.
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This is a film in which the score not only adds flavor, but it also presents a style that the filmmaking lacks, just to make sure that you don’t get the wrong genre impression. Abe and Caroline’s clumsy inquiries are accompanied by sauntering drum brushes and piano ditties, which makes it crystal clear that this is a noir film, something that the cinematography could have done more with. The film also suffers from a lack of imagination: it takes place in a town that supports its own kid detective, but the world-building for this old-fashioned town is primarily provided by the whimsical lyrics of Nancy Sinatra’s “Sugar Town,” which appears at the end of the film.
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Morgan’s directorial debut demonstrates an intriguing ambition for do-or-die, slow-burn comedy, as evidenced by sequences that build for a long time before abruptly coming to a conclusion. This occurs at least twice a year. A brief passage about Abe’s potentially dangerous closet-hiding abilities is mildly amusing, especially given how much time the story devotes to the subject. The film’s punchline, on the other hand, is an ill-conceived attempt to capitalize on a single big laugh that never materializes.
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When it comes to the scenarios that Morgan clearly intends to be amusing, the script could use some punching up, but it does demonstrate some skill in the way Morgan connects these various different pieces of Abe’s broken life, which are related to the film’s broader themes of resisting time or being stuck in it. The film’s conclusion tries to imply something deeper about Abe’s relatable existence; the final shot, in particular, is a welcome moment of bitter weirdness that doesn’t quite make up for everything that has gone before it.
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While navigating this inherent premise of arrested development with something more serious and grounded (for a much sillier approach, check out Donald Glover in the underrated “Mystery Team”), there is certainly something to be admired. Despite this, the approach taken here appears to be counter-intuitive. Despite the fact that there is so much set up, “The Kid Detective” fails to provide us with a mystery, a hero, or even a good laugh.
For the sake of full disclosure, it is felt necessary to state that this film was screened via link despite the fact that it is only available in theaters. The purpose of this review is not to encourage or dissuade anyone from attending a theatrical screening at the time specified in this review. It is a critical examination of the work itself for the benefit of future generations.
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