Soleil Moon Frye became the child star of the 80s in Punky Brewster, at the age of seven. She played America’s favorite sage cracking doll, wearing incompatible high-top sneakers and extolling the virtues of Punky Power. The show ended up being canceled in 1988 – and that’s when Frye started carrying a video camera around, filming her other child star friends, just in time for her weird teen years. Kid 90, a new documentary that starts airing on Hulu today, turns your home movie into a time capsule for kids in show business growing up in Hollywood in the 1990s. It was programmed to coincide with Peacock’s new reboot at Peacock, starring Frye as a single mother.
As she says in the film, “Somewhere in there, that teenager knew she would have a story to tell, she knew she was going on an adventure. And she was going to document every fucking second of it, so she could share it someday. ” And the Good companions of children’s sagas, about growing up in a dirty business that you can never escape from. The best scenario is for you to live the rest of your life like an idiot.
Stream Kid 90 on Hulu here
Kid 90 is full of his teenage antics with friends like Saved by the gongMark-Paul Gosselaar, Stephen Dorff and David Arquette, who appear to relive the memories with her. There is footage of Jenny Lewis and Sara Gilbert laughing on their couch. (Lewis says, “Cool camera, man!”) We see her hanging out with Leonardo DiCaprio, Dustin Diamond, Robin Thicke, Mario Lopez, Charlie Sheen. She arrives at Sea World with Beverly Hills 90210is Brian Austin Green, who says to the camera, “Say no to drugs!” The current Green tells a funny story about how to meet her at her birthday party with guests from the A list. “Johnny Depp, C. Thomas Howell and Bubbles, Michael Jackson’s chimpanzee,” he recalls. “Literally, there were about 12 children in the business, so we all knew everyone. We all knew each other. “
The tapes stayed in a warehouse for 20 years. But with this doc, she opens the vaults. There is a standout film of his childhood fame, including Frye smiling in a raisin TV ad and chatting with Joan Rivers, Nancy Reagan, George HW Bush and Andy Gibb. There’s even a clip of everyone’s favorite Punky Brewster episode, the one that Buzz Aldrin visits to cure his pain over the 1986 Challenger explosion.
For an early 90s pop culture addict, Kid 90 it is definitely a trip to the past. Frye carried his camera before social media or the internet boom, so no one worries about being filmed while they party, drink and use drugs. She likes to ask friends about their philosophy of life, so we have pensées by Emmanuel Lewis and Michael Rappaport and Corey Feldman. She’s poetic about her romance with Danny Boy O’Connor – you know, the second most famous rapper on House of Pain, during the “Jump Around” era. We see a page from her teenage diary, for the important day when Mark Wahlberg calls her. She draws hearts around her name.
But, like virtually all other child stars of the Reagan era, she did not reach adult stardom. As soon as Punky has been canceled, his career has come to a halt and this is where the story really begins – none of these children are prepared to deal with the rejection and failure of show business. For Frye, it was complicated by his body image problems; she was still young enough to go to summer camp when the mean kids started calling her “Punky Boobster”. There is an irritating scene of a special appearance in The wonderful years, with Fred Savage – and the adults behind the camera – looking at her chest. She underwent breast reduction surgery at age 15, one of the first celebrities to publicize this experience.
As she points out in the film, no one really wants to see children’s stars grow. She films her teenage self talking about what she wants to achieve next, to the sound of “Hypnotizing” by Liz Phair. But that goes straight to the filming of his roles in tacky films like Pumpkinhead 2: Blood Wings and the TV remake of Hooker. She finally goes to New York to learn her trade at Actors Studio, confessing, “I wanted to be taken seriously”.
The story is incredibly dark. She details her horrible experience of being sexually abused as a teenager by an older actor she loved and trusted. It also includes images of his many old friends who ended up killing themselves, whether by drugs or suicide, of SeaQuestJonathan Brandis for porn actress Shannon Willsey. There is a list of calls from his dead friends at the end, defined as “Road to Nowhere” by the Talking Heads.
But Frye is more comfortable portraying the stupid child he used to be. She reads her teenage diary (with James Dean on the cover), with a poem she wrote about turning 13 called “Lost Angels”. There is a phone call with Joey Lawrence about visiting her at the hospital after the surgery. She saves the funniest footage for the final credits: a surprisingly young Leonardo DiCaprio brags about how Frye has been filming him for two years. “This is your little document of my growth. I grew up at least 3 inches, 4 inches. And I’m bigger too! ”When she shows Perry Farrell some of her images, he winces at his Jane’s Addiction fashion choices. “There is the rainbow shirt, yes,” he groans. “I was afraid that you would pull on that rainbow jacket. Okay, it is what it is. “
Frye continues to emphasize that she was a child star who never felt pushed in front of the camera and has nothing but loving words for her stage mom and absent father, actor Virgil Frye. (Her previous documentary Sonny Boy it was about their relationship at the sad end of her life.) But it is clear that getting famous was a disaster from which she is still recovering. Your old friends suffer similar damage – if they are still alive. Adolescence and stardom appear as a traumatic combination. It hurt these children for the rest of their lives.