By Lily GoodmanÂ
The Bad Kids is a work that cannot go ignored. The latest documentary from filmmakers Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe, the film immerses itself in a world so grounded in poverty, broken homes, drug abuse, teen pregnancy, and just about every other kind of desperate situation a young person could find themselves in that it can be pretty difficult to see the light at times.
The good news? There is some light, and it comes in the form of the highly dedicated educators from Black Rock Continuation High School, one of California’s alternative schools that caters to students who are on the brink of flunking out of high school.
Set in the desolate Mojave Desert, the film follows three would-be high-school seniors who have fallen so far behind in credits there is no hope for them to graduate in a traditional setting.
The cast comprises three principal characters: Joey, who grapples with drug use and an unreliable mother; Lee, a teen dad struggling to support his new family; and Jennifer, a victim of sexual abuse who also lacks support from her family in regards to her scholastic endeavors.
So, in comes Black Rock and another one of the documentary’s main protagonists: Vonda Viland, a principal who does everything she can from calling all of her students to wake them up in the morning to holding them in her arms when they break down in tears to ensure that they earn their diplomas.
In all honesty, Viland’s unwavering devotion to the students drives the film — but, unfortunately for the viewer, there’s never a real answer on why, exactly, she is so devoted. In a scene toward the end of the film in which she informs an unnamed student that she will have to expel her from Black Rock following a violent outburst, Viland visibly breaks down in front of the student.
“I know how hard this is for you, because you were me 40 years ago,” she says, crying. But that’s as far as we get in terms of an explanation.
Similar brevity surrounds Joey’s, Lee’s, and Jennifer’s stories. This isn’t necessarily a huge fault, but at certain points, it almost feels as if the motivation of the film’s subjects, and even the film itself, is skimmed over.
Except maybe the directors’ collective vision wasn’t to dwell on the “why” as much as it was to highlight what’s to come.
What is to come for the students of Black Rock arguably depends on how much they allow themselves to be be nurtured and supported by the faculty. Numerous scenes depict students arm-in-arm with Viland as they walk down the hallway to “Pomp and Circumstance” in a makeshift graduation ceremony, no longer “bad kids” with no future but high-school graduates with aspirations that aren’t as far out of reach as they were before.
Unsettling as it can be, The Bad Kids doesn’t appear to be a film whose goal is to make its audience uncomfortable. It’s more of an observational study that aims to highlight the beauty of humanity and the compassion of the world’s inhabitants.
In the end, Black Rock proves single-handedly that the world still has good people who don’t just help others for some ulterior motive. Where some could argue that it lacks exploring its subjects, some could also argue that The Bad Kids isn’t about the sad stories of the past but rather the uplifting, unwritten stories of the future.