Showbiz Kids

A documentary about child actors. The subject is not fame but what comes after: interrupted education, the handling of money, the role of parents, how the industry treats children, and what happens in the transition to adulthood. Alex Winter directs. He was a child actor himself, known for the Bill & Ted films, and knows the period from inside. The documentary is made from that position rather than from outside. Among those speaking are Evan Rachel Wood, Wil Wheaton, Mara Wilson, Todd Bridges, Milla Jovovich, Henry Thomas and Jada Pinkett Smith. Most of what they describe is negative, and many say that entering the industry meant the end of childhood. The film also follows two children in the present: two young people going to auditions and trying to build careers. The parallel structure is used to show that what is described in the past is still going on. The heaviest material concerns sexual abuse. Wheaton and others state directly that children in the industry were left unprotected, and the documentary builds that question out of personal testimony. It was released by HBO. Who it is for: viewers curious about the inside of the industry and the question of child labour. Who it is not for: the film proposes no solution and does not go far enough into the argument about regulation, and the interviews start repeating.