I was not expecting to dive into the case of The Kid Detective. I wasn’t even aware there was one. All I knew was that I had never heard of the film until February 2021 (three months after its release on Nov. 6 in Canada, having come out first on Oct. 16 in the U.S.), which was maybe not so strange given the ongoing pandemic. The hard-boiled poster—star Adam Brody nursing a drink, co-star Sophie Nélisse wide eyed with shock—was slightly familiar. I just thought it was some minor straight-to-video release, which didn’t seem such a reach considering its former teen star, a demographic often relegated to that ilk of film. Then I started seeing critic after critic saying that, actually, it’s fucking awesome. So I watched it, and watched it again, and it is now probably my favorite Canadian movie ever. There’s something so quintessentially local about this little neo-noir that makes it not just quaint, but irresistible.
It’s pretty simple at first glance: a once-celebrated Nancy Drew-type named Abe Applebaum (Brody) fails to solve the most important mystery of his youth, and 20 years later is a washed up has-been. But then a teenager (Nélisse) brings him a murder case with which he might reclaim his old glory. Right before the film’s title appears, Telefilm Canada flashes on the screen, but anyone around here could have sniffed that out without the signpost. The Kid Detective feels just contained enough that the budget implies Canadian money, but it stretches out leisurely within those confines. It has that suburban quality of fringe Ontario towns (it was filmed in North Bay) and it is heightened like genre films are, but conservatively, like the good Canadian it is.
Rarely has a film been so underserved by its title. The Kid Detective: it conjures images of a perky, Disneyesque B-movie from the late 70s. In fact, it’s one of the darkest, most astringently bleak comedies of the year – a feature-length howl of existential despair and disappointment, punctuated with jokes. Fortunately, the jokes are bracingly sharp; many – like a running gag about free ice-cream – are seeded early in the picture, to pay off satisfyingly later.
As a precocious 12-year-old, Abe was “the Kid Detective” – a local celebrity and a fixture in the town newspaper. But when a girl went missing and he was unable to rescue her, the town’s grief weighed heavily on his shoulders. Now Abe is a grown man stewing resentfully in the shadow of his hot-shot younger self.
Adam Brody is slyly apposite casting for the lead role: an actor tipped for stardom after The OC and a showy cameo in Thank You for Smoking, he knows a thing or two about the crushing burden of potential. He’s terrific as Abe, nursing an ulcerous sense of self-loathing as his private detective business limps along on missing cat cases and pity. Then a real crime lands in his lap – Caroline’s (Sophie Nélisse) boyfriend was murdered and she wants to know why.
Writer-director Evan Morgan’s deft screenplay balances a taut crime story against a textured character study. The smoky, jazz-infused score works particularly well, both as an ironic joke and as a nod to the seasoned gumshoe that Abe longs to be.
