children

The Hollywood Complex (Directors: Dylan Nelson and Dan Sturman): The Hollywood Complex looks at the trials and tribu­la­tions of aspiring child actors and their fam­ilies who make their way to Hollywood every spring for television’s “pilot season,” when most net­works and cable chan­nels do casting for their shows. The film fol­lows the stories of a handful of kids and their par­ents, who all tem­por­arily reside at the Oakwood apart­ment com­plex in North Hollywood. The Oakwood spe­cial­izes in housing young talent, providing a like-minded envir­on­ment for its cli­en­tele and direct access to a net­work of acting coaches, work­shops, casting agents, and pho­to­graphers, all of whom sell hope, along with their spe­cific services.

The bulk of the doc­u­mentary, which was fin­ished just four days prior to its world premiere at Hot Docs, chron­icles each child’s struggle to stand out in a crowd of thou­sands. Shanna, 13, is just in from Colorado and a com­plete newbie to Hollywood, accom­panied by her skep­tical yet sup­portive mother. Cruelly, before Shanna has even gotten into the game she’s at a dis­ad­vantage, as we find out that the odds of landing a role for young teen­agers or someone in their late tweens decreases sig­ni­fic­antly because of the abund­ance of kids in this age group who are com­peting for the jobs avail­able. It’s an oddball spin on the “act­resses over the age of 40 have a hard time finding work” axiom. The Casa family has five kids making the audi­tion rounds, which makes for cramped enough accom­mod­a­tions at the Oakwood that one of them has to sleep under a table. Mama Casa says that she’s pretty open to having one of her sons take on any role, as long as it’s nothing that glor­i­fies Satan. Then there’s the annoy­ingly pre­co­cious Megan, who exudes con­fid­ence and thinks it’s a good strategy to show up at one audi­tion dressed in a garish, age-inappropriate outfit that is sure to make an impres­sion. It doesn’t. Megan’s mom, also extro­verted and quirky, tiredly admits that they’ve had some­where in the neigh­bour­hood of 40+ straight audi­tions with no call­backs. Perhaps in an effort to change her luck, Megan ends up chan­ging her stage name to “Presley Cash.”

Additional by-products of the film’s focus are exam­in­a­tions of celebrity cul­ture, the ugly side of show busi­ness, and the lengths that mothers and fathers will go to for their chil­dren. I expected to see some examples of the pro­ver­bial “stage moms,” or par­ents who were just attempting to live vicari­ously through their kids, but there was really no evid­ence of this in the film (at the post-screening Q&A ses­sion the dir­ectors said they were sur­prised at how little of it they encountered). The fact that none of the fam­ilies we see appear to come from an affluent back­ground only adds extra emphasis to their struggles and the gamble they’re taking. In one scene, we see a mother rum­ma­ging through a recyc­ling bin with one of her kids in an effort to scrounge up bottles that will give her a little extra cash. The well-known sleazy side of show busi­ness rears its ugly head fre­quently, with the two best examples being one scene where a young child going up for a role as a dying patient on House is encour­aged to watch YouTube videos of real kids who are dying, as well as another scene where a casting agent deciding on a young girl for a role says that he needs one with “no tit­ties.” That line eli­cited a mass groan from the theatre audience.

Directed by Dylan Nelson and Dan Sturman (Sturman brought his excel­lent Soundtrack for a Revolution to Hot Docs’ Doc Soup series last year), the film is a revealing and some­what dis­turbing look into a seg­ment of show busi­ness where chil­dren are com­monly objec­ti­fied for our enter­tain­ment and treated as a com­modity, and are willing par­ti­cipants (along with their par­ents) while doing so. The Hollywood Complex should be imper­ative viewing for any kids and their par­ents seeking fame and fortune.

Official site of the film

Tagged as: #hotdocs11, childhood, children, hollywood

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