Kansas Bowling's Cuddly Toys takes an offbeat, surreal, and often disturbing look at the secret lives of teenage girls that coats its subject matter with a little sugar and a lot of salt.
takes an offbeat, surreal, and often disturbing look at the secret lives of teenage girls that coats its subject matter with a little sugar and a lot of salt.
I say supposedly because Bowling’s purposefully goofy undertone in her presentation does disarm the potential reality of the documentary’s subjects and their traumatic lives. It’s a fascinating presentation style because it almost seems like it’s mocking the idea of a straight-up documentary on what can befall young girls who come across the wrong influences at an impressionable time in their lives. And to that end, it makes sense.
The girls at the center of this docu-fiction echo the tone to some degree. There are several accounts of their experiences with men at a young age that naturally, end in some vile way, and because Cuddly Toys plays with the boundaries of fiction in its presentation, the words alone are not enough to invoke the desired response, especially as there’s little to no grim-faced despair when these things are being discussed. No, that comes when we later get reenactments featuring those same girls.
Another strong selling point in this jarring disparity is that Cuddly Toys is filmed on 16mm, evoking the look of old-school education programming. Bowling starts in an almost cutesy affectaion of that, but layers in more and more content clearly not meant to be there. Instead of a glib, broad fluff piece on girlhood meant for schools, it’s an off-kilter mutant that spills the real information needed.
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