Not my usual foray, but when I saw the trailer and marketing for this one, I figured It seemed like something I could get into (what with having a passing interest in politics)

The doc follows Hayden Pedigo a 24 year old musician and video artist who attempts to run for the local council in Area 2 of Amarillo, Texas. And while the doc largely focusses on his ‘No donation/No Sponsorship’ campaign, we also get to see the living conditions within the area and get to know the locals as Hayden, who had previously had no political experience, and essentially decided to run after making a funny movie about him playing a strange guy running for the local council, which blew up on Reddit, slowly begins to reach out to communities with the limited support of his friends, while also dealing with backlash from his parents who dont approve and some friction between himself his friends and his wife.

And, while I wasnt *completely* won over by the production on this, the heart, charm and warmth is exudes is frankly delightful and is the thing that really carries this production to the next level.

I think the biggest issue the documentary has is that it really tries to cram too much into the 70(ish) minutes this runs for. Much like the titular ‘Kid Candidate’ The film wildly swings from topic to topic without a clear narrative frame to work within. It’s almost like it talks about an aspect of living in Amarillo, or some background to Haydens life, or we’ll meet members of the community who’ll explain how the current corrupt council have managed to remain in power. But it’ll only hold consistency long enough to become bored by it, then it sharply pivots into something else.

The end result was ultimately that I felt like it was really trying to do two VERY big things at the same time, To tell Haydens story of running for the council AND to try and tell the story of the political swampiness of Amarillo.

Both stories could co-exist, but there really has to be a clearly more dominent element for the documentary to properly function, and I didnt really feel that either story had a more dominant weight for me to invest my interest.

What we ultimately get from this, feels more like a snapshot into the everyday lives of people living in a corrupt system, and the council running story seems almost like they decided last minute that that would be the angle they’d run with. Theres a few moments of artificial suspence, which also felt a little underwhelming on the payoff, and I thought the ending was a bit abrupt.

But then, at the same time contrasting that, we have some really nice interviews with people that feel powerful, engaging and interesting. The visual arrangement for this is a little on the minimalist side, but is charming all the same and, ultimately documentaries like this live and die by their subjects, and Hayden comes across as a very genuine, sincere and at times pained individual, who loves his city and just wants to see it and it’s people treated right.

I ultmately came away from ‘Kid Candidate’ feeling a little fried by just how much information they’d attempted to pour into my brain. But at the same time, I came away from it feeling like I really got to know the situation and it really refreshed my faith that people really truely care and sincerely want to change things.

So…yeh. Its got a lot of heart, it’s got an aspect of feelgood, but isnt afraid to acknowledge the difficulties Hayden encountered. I dont think it was well structured, but I cant deny I enjoyed it. A gentle reccomendation from me. It’s not an essential watch, but I think this ones going to age into a most marvellous time capsule of this eras strange political landscape.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/kid-candidate/