movie review the kid detective

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The Kid Detective Reviews

Oozing with style and delivering a top-notch mystery story, The Kid Detective is a refreshing piece of cinema with a poignant performance from Adam Brody.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 11, 2024

The Kid Detective satisfies a craving for a different type of detective story with its dark comedy and a sharp script that it handles with a deft hand.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Sep 9, 2022

One of the major surprises of this year, and essential viewing for anyone who's been fiending for a good mystery or trying to bypass their own system of emotional traps.

Full Review | Sep 9, 2021

A comedy so dark you're not sure when to laugh, it's reminiscent of Bored to Death and Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, but has an energy of its own that is likely to divide viewers.

Full Review | Aug 20, 2021

...a solid debut for a promising filmmaker.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 14, 2021

It's as if a kiddie flick starred a clever (but only clever) manchild ... the main draw is observing when and how [the tone] veers into seriousness.

Full Review | May 26, 2021

A real gem - clever and enjoyable on the surface, with a rich subtextual current beneath.

Full Review | May 18, 2021

The Kid Detective is surprisingly assured as it jumps from laugh-out-loud comedy to profound tragedy, anchored by Brody's layered performance that takes on a meta-quality any time the subject of the diminishing returns of early fame rears its head.

Full Review | May 10, 2021

Sit back, dim the lights and enjoy.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 26, 2021

[I]t's a genuine exploration of what a combination of guilt and trauma does to a child, especially when left untreated and unexamined.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Apr 26, 2021

Casting Adam Brody as the detective who's known by his hometown when he was younger is perfect.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 19, 2021

The Kid Detective forces us to add Morgan on a list of directors to watch. [Full Review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 2, 2021

Writer-director Evan Morgan's feature debut is a fabulous black comedy anchored by a terrific performance by former The OC and Scream 4 star Brody.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 1, 2021

The Kid Detective proves its worth with a solid lead performance from Brody in this cynical study of suburbia.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Feb 17, 2021

Mixes deadpan humor with an intriguing mystery and film noir style, acknowledging its goofy premise while building a surprisingly engrossing plot.

Full Review | Feb 11, 2021

Brody gives this cartoonish thirty-year-old battered by childhood expectations just the right amount of cynicism and hope. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 8, 2021

A low-key movie with a high concept that is a little too in love with its own subtleties.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 29, 2021

It's that kind of film-subversive, funny, dark but not bleak-that would make it enjoyably rewatchable for years to come.

Full Review | Jan 26, 2021

... the wry humor and the groovy flow of things make it a watchable experience.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 2, 2021

The Kid Detective is well written and actually fun, never mind that the light comedy and noir vibes don't quite mesh.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 12, 2020

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‘The Kid Detective’ Review: This Smart, Handsomely Noir-esque Whodunit Is No Child’s Play

Adam Brody delivers a layered performance as a past-his-prime PI in debuting director Evan Morgan's sharp crime tale with shockingly dark twists.

By Tomris Laffly

Tomris Laffly

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Don’t be fooled by the cheery ring of the Disney-esque title “ The Kid Detective .” Severely misrepresenting the mature essence of writer and first-time director Evan Morgan ’s smart crime caper, this innocent-sounding name might just be the result of poor creative judgment. Then again, it might also be purposely designed to pull the rug out from under the viewer, much as Morgan’s ambitious genre exercise often does to satisfying effect.

In short, you won’t find something as young-skewing as “Harriet the Spy” or “Encyclopedia Brown” here, as “The Kid Detective” has much darker ambitions in store. Splendidly summoning film noir-esque vibes, classically ghastly bad guys and femme fatale types out of a whimsical small town full of grotesque mysteries, this bold and often surprisingly humorous film — think of it as a more mainstream version of Rian Johnson’s “Brick” — grapples with themes related to murder and abuse, as well as the existential dread of its central recluse, who fell grossly short of the promising life he thought he was meant to have in his younger days.

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Frequently drunk and getting mixed up in petty bar fights, the down-on-his-luck now-adult Abe embodies something deeply sad, like the dead-end future of a one-hit band, or a celebrated child star who peaked too early before Hollywood gave up on him. (Perhaps Brody, beloved in his time on “The O.C.,” knows a thing or two about the diminishing returns of fame.) Once several steps ahead of any crime movie he devoured, Abe has now fallen behind in life and lost the patience of his community, a gloomy fact DP Michael Robert McLaughlin’s suddenly gray photography won’t let you overlook. Operating from the same dusty office with a dismissive Goth queen of an assistant (a sharp Sarah Sutherland), he barely makes ends meet through insignificant clients that are few and far between and accepts occasional bail-out cash from his unsympathetically nosy parents. But a second chance thankfully comes knocking when teenage Caroline (Sophie Nélisse) brings him a bona fide case, hiring him to find the murderer of her boyfriend.

The two team up, going down an intimidating rabbit hole of shady schemes that involves drugs, jealous nerds, cynical townsfolk and a chain of unforeseen twists, the culmination of which will make any devotee of physical movie theaters feel nostalgic about the collective audience gasps. Since these turns would be unfair to spoil, suffice it to say that Morgan brilliantly crafts a wild ride of seamless tonal shifts, elevated by polished production values, zippy editing and various narrative grace notes that honor his side characters — including the dead victim’s grieving parents Mr. and Mrs. Chang — with both compassion and wit. (A running gag about Abe’s age-old hiding-in-the-closet trick particularly lends the film a number of inspired giggles and cringes.)

But what’s most moving about “The Kid Detective” is the sibling-like bond between Nélisse’s Caroline and Brody’s Abe, written and portrayed with astonishing sensitivity. Recalling a young Laura Dern with her innocent, blue-eyed façade that harbors a stealthy sort of strength, Nélisse is raw and heartrending when her Caroline faces a number of hard truths in the end. Balancing her naivete with his hard-earned wisdom, Brody never overdoes or undersells Abe’s droll bitterness, ultimately establishing a wholesome chemistry with his co-star that is strangely comforting to witness.

It feels slightly rushed when “The Kid Detective” supplies some shocking answers for all its unknowns. But you will nonetheless be grateful for its generous, deftly considered reveals even when they arrive sooner than anticipated, as well as relish the time you’ve spent in this vintage world of secrets and lies, both entertainingly old-fashioned and defiantly fresh.

Reviewed online, New York, Oct. 14, 2020. (In Toronto Film Festival.) Running time: 99 MIN.

Production: (Canada) A Sony, Stage 6 Films release of a levelFILM presentation of a Woods Entertainment, JoBro Prods., Film Finance production, in association with Crave, Bell Media Group, with the participation of Telefilm Canada, Northern Ontario Heritage Foundation, Ontario Creates.. Producers: William Woods, Jonathan Bronfman. Executive producers: Mark Gingras, John Laing, Berry Meyerowitz, Jeff Sackman.
Crew: Director, writer: Evan Morgan. Camera: Michael Robert McLaughlin. Editor: Curt Lobb. Music: Jay McCarroll.
With: Adam Brody, Sophie Nélisse, Sarah Sutherland, Tzi Ma, Wendy Crewson, Jonathan Whittaker, Peter MacNeill.

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Review: Don’t be fooled by the title — ‘The Kid Detective’ is a clever genre-bender for grown-ups

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“The Kid Detective” is an unexpected mix of disparate elements that in the wrong hands could have resulted in lumpy parody but, fortunately, pours out as something smooth, funny, dark and potent.

Imagine if an Encyclopedia Brown -like boy sleuth had cruised along, catching school cash-box thieves and the like, winning admiration from all — until he ran into an actual life-or-death crime and wasn’t up to the task. And it involved another kid. Flash-forward a couple of decades, and the young gumshoe (Abe Applebaum, now played by Adam Brody ) has never gotten over that failure. The onetime toast of the town is an unshaven 30-something, beaten down by life, struggling to get by. He’s smart as ever, but no one really believes in him anymore. He barely believes in himself.

Abe has fallen to the level of dirty-secrets private investigator: Describing the “big case” he just finished, he tells his mother, “This gay guy wanted me to find out whether another guy was gay.” “Was he?” “Yeah. A little bit.” Then a young girl (Sophie Nélisse) with a dead-serious case shows up and he has to get it together or the consequences could be dire.

“The Kid Detective”: Once, he was a celebrated boy sleuth. That was a long time ago. Now he’s finding that part of growing up is taking a very adult - and possibly lethal - case.

There are definitely pieces there of a slacker, gonzo comedy or a weighty gaze into the abyss. Instead, Evan Morgan, making his feature writing-directing debut, finds a wire-walking balance that makes Abe’s struggle real, funny and dangerous. It’s a kind of gentle, daytime, Canadian noir that occasionally reminds you of the seriousness of the stakes. It is not for kids.

There’s detail in the idiosyncrasies of the town and the people, yet it never gets cutesy. Even small roles are fleshed out — veteran actor Tzi Ma is just great in a brief appearance as a grieving father who is still every bit as formidable as he was before tragedy struck.

The film is effectively self-aware. When it seems about to tip into cliché, it yanks itself back from the edge. In that scene with the grieving parents, when the father calls hogwash on all the holes in Abe’s investigation, it bracingly deepens the risk by rooting us in reality. Morgan and composer Jay McCarrol let us feel the sunny mundanity of this small, friendly town, then drop in noir overtones.

With a no-longer young-buck protagonist, Morgan also shows an ear for contemporary teen dialogue. When Abe questions a teen mixed up in some shady business, he says, “Your mom seems nice.” The girl’s blasé response: “She’s getting to the age where she thinks she’s too cool for me.” When a sweet character realizes she’d made some innocent false assumptions, she gasps, “Oh, my God. I’m such a racist.”

The mystery turns out to be compelling. The characters are well drawn, the acting strong across the board — especially in the gripping climax. For Brody, the role and performance are career bests (so far). And beneath the bells and whistles, “The Kid Detective” is actually about something. It’s a layered look at the loss of innocence. The way that theme plays out makes the movie’s resolution all the more affecting, including its final shot.

'The Kid Detective'

Rated: R, for language, drug use, some sexual references, brief nudity and violence Running time: 1 hour, 39 minutes Playing: In general release, where theaters are open

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‘The Kid Detective’ Review: Adam Brody Is a Failed Gumshoe in Curious Black Comedy

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Abe Applebaum used to be loved. Back when he was a kid detective — think Encyclopedia Brown, Nancy Drew, and the Hardy Boys, with a generous dose of street smarts to boot — Abe was the star of his small town, a whiz kid with charm and pluck and all the other good stuff necessary to solve relatively benign crimes. Someone stole the school fundraising cash? Abe will find out who did it! Worried about the light vandalism plaguing picture perfect downtown? Abe’s your guy! But what happens when a kid detective grows up?

Such is the clever conceit of Evan Morgan’s feature directorial debut, “The Kid Detective,” which picks up decades after Abe’s fledgling career was felled by a truly heinous crime. Oh, Abe ( Adam Brody , sharing the role with young Jesse Noah Gruman in flashbacks) is still a detective — he’s even got the same office, just with the “kid” scratched off the old-school frosted glass door, he’s just “detective” now — but after his tween secretary went missing when they were still just youngsters and Abe couldn’t so much as come up with a suspect, the gloss was off his profession. And, in many ways, his entire life.

Morgan, who also wrote the film’s screenplay, nattily sends up all the usual tropes of the eponymous kid detective, imagining Abe as the kind of junior gumshoe who paid said tween secretary in soda pop and mostly used his skills to just totally ruin movie plots with twists he could sniff out a mile away. But what does that look like nearly twenty years later? Brody, who captured classic hangdog charm with his seminal turn in “The O.C.” and somehow never let it go (a good thing) is a canny choice for adult Abe, the kind of grownup who forgets to brush his teeth, has no idea what day it is, and still needs his parents to deliver his groceries.

So, really, what does happen when a kid detective grows up? In Morgan’s hands, something curious, laced with pitch black comedy and a major dose of tragedy, a winking sense of genre, and a stellar performance from Brody. Morgan lets the audience in on his icy humor early, introducing the ill-fated kid secretary Gracie Gulliver (Kaitlyn Chalmers-Rizzato) as she practically skips down the streets of a cutesy small town to the classic tones of Nancy Sinatra’s “Sugar Town,” only to be kidnapped by an unseen villain and never seen again. Years later, Abe is still smarting from that unsolvable case, a heinous crime that he was wholly unsuited to solve, even though everyone thought he’d wrap it up in no time.

These days, that cutesy small town has fallen into disrepair (no one even comes in for the potato festival anymore), Gracie’s beloved dad and the town’s mayor have committed suicide, and Abe is still saddled with small-scale cases (from finding a missing cat to sussing out a man’s sexual preference). It’s an amusing twist on the down-and-out detective story, and like so many stories that take that shape, Abe is about to be handed a major new case that could turn it all around. Unfortunately, it’s another case he’s deeply ill-equipped to solve.

Enter former child star Sophie Nélisse (best known for “The Book Thief”) as the Gracie-esque Caroline, who employs Abe to find out who killed her sweet boyfriend Patrick, recently offed by way of a truly gruesome stabbing. Morgan and Brody keep the film’s off-kilter humor and lo-fi appeal alive even in the face of some truly dark stuff, with Nélisse proving to be a charming foil for the constantly falling-apart Abe. As the duo dive deeper into the mystery of Patrick’s murder, seemingly meaningless clues and funny asides pan out into something bigger — just like they did in Abe’s youth! — and the once-celebrated detective seems on track to finally solving his first “adult” case.

But that’s the rub, because for all of the film’s winking humor and clever constructs, “The Kid Detective” does ultimately have to grapple with some pretty adult issues. Abe long ago realized his pint-size smartie act wasn’t going to cut it and responded by just not growing up at all. What can possibly happen to an emotionally astray adult who is obsessed with crimes? Nothing good, and while the tonal shifts that “The Kid Detective” makes in its twisty final act don’t always feel natural and will certainly take some audience members by surprise, there is an honesty to them. As Abe pushes closer to the truth, the film moves into darker corners, as Morgan and Brody attempt (with only some success) to hold fast to the humor that has driven it this far. Abe, it seems, is an adult now, and it’s time for an adult story, with all the pain that might entail.

Sony’s Stage 6 Films will release “The Kid Detective” in select theaters on Friday, October 16.

As new movies open in theaters during the COVID-19 pandemic, IndieWire will continue to review them whenever possible. We encourage readers to follow the safety precautions provided by CDC and health authorities. Additionally, our coverage will provide alternative viewing options whenever they are available.

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The Kid Detective review – charming, funny, and surprisingly bittersweet

Adam Brody gives a career-best performance in The Kid Detective that is equal parts charming, funny, and surprisingly bittersweet.

The Kid Detective is a Canadian import from freshman director Evan Morgan. This is his directorial feature debut and it’s an impressive one, especially when you think of a first-time feature having to juggle comedy and mystery, and he manages to build some genuine suspense. All of that is layered with a three-dimensional performance by Brody that weaves in moments of humor and melancholy. If any part of his performance fails, the movie does as well. For Morgan, that’s not bad for a guy whose main credits come from a handful of Goosebumps episodes in the nineties as a child actor. Then again, maybe that is where he found the inspiration.

The Kid Detective could not have been made without Psych and has some shades of Bad Santa . Some may argue that the film could have benefited from even more black comedy. That is a fair point. However, by the time you may have that thought, Morgan’s film morphs into something completely different and genuinely unexpected.

Article by Marc Miller

Marc Miller (also known as M.N. Miller) joined Ready Steady Cut in April 2018 as a Film and TV Critic, publishing over 1,600 articles on the website. Since a young age, Marc dreamed of becoming a legitimate critic and having that famous “Rotten Tomato” approved status – in 2023, he achieved that status.

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The kid detective, common sense media reviewers.

Dark whodunit comedy has a message; also drinking, drugs.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Believe in how you see yourself instead of how the

Abe uses curiosity and perseverance to solve crime

A character is beaten up at a bar. Viewers are tol

Photograph of a nude woman (breasts exposed) who i

Strong language includes several uses of "s--t" an

A Chrysler LeBaron convertible is shown repeatedly

Upon discovering an unknown drug that's a clue, th

Positive Messages

Believe in how you see yourself instead of how the world sees you.

Positive Role Models

Abe uses curiosity and perseverance to solve crimes, but overall he's not much of a role model.

Violence & Scariness

A character is beaten up at a bar. Viewers are told about a teen who is stabbed to death, one who was kidnapped. Implication of a recurring sexual crime to a minor and references to pedophile activities. Suicide, with blood.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Photograph of a nude woman (breasts exposed) who is supposed to be a teen. A man is completely naked, his backside revealed. Sex act is described literally.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Strong language includes several uses of "s--t" and "f--k." "Jesus!" used as an exclamation.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

A Chrysler LeBaron convertible is shown repeatedly, but it doesn't come off as particularly cool.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Upon discovering an unknown drug that's a clue, the detective takes it and likes how it makes him feel -- so he takes it a second time (after he's been warned it's addictive). Bong shown on the table at a small gathering. Smoking, including by a teen. Constant drinking to demonstrate depression and feeling like a failure.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that The Kid Detective is a comedic mystery about what happens to a prodigy who's burdened by high expectations. Abe Applebaum ( Adam Brody ) gained notoriety as a child detective who failed when he wasn't able to solve the mystery of his best friend's disappearance. As an adult, he's somewhat of a town joke, and he wallows in his self-doubt and self-pity by drinking heavily; drug paraphernalia is also seen. He takes a murder case involving a high school honors student. Subjects like teen sex, suicide, drug dealing, and homelessness are touched on, but the only character actually taking drugs is Abe. One joke involves him hiding while searching for evidence and getting trapped in a little girl's closet -- when he's caught, the town believes he's a pedophile. Characters smoke, including an older teen girl who's briefly seen nude in a photo. A naked man's bare backside is also shown, and sex is described. Strong language includes "s--t" and "f--k." To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

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Community Reviews

Parents say (1)
Kids say (1)

Based on 1 parent review

A great film, but not for family movie night

What's the story.

Once Abe Applebaum ( Adam Brody ) was THE KID DETECTIVE, a hometown hero who was celebrated as a child for his ability to identify the culprit of small crimes. But when his best friend went missing and he couldn't solve the mystery, he -- and the town -- lost faith in his abilities. Now 31, Abe has finally landed his first big case -- and finding the culprit could mean restoring his reputation.

Is It Any Good?

With humor that's wry, dry, and sly, this mystery spins on reexamining the private detectives of the past by looking at them in a contemporary light. There's no doubt that young Abe Applebaum is supposed to be Encyclopedia Brown: His name sounds like it comes straight from Donald J. Sobol's books (the first one is even titled Boy Detective ), as do the types of small-time cases he solves. And, just as Brown's bestie/assistant was 14-year-old Sally Kimball, Abe's is 14-year-old Gracie Gulliver -- and when she goes missing, he believes everyone expects him to find her. What would happen to a "boy genius" if everyone in a child's community, including adults, acknowledged that he was an exceptional prodigy, but then he failed to achieve when it really mattered? It's an astute concept, and it's easy to make the leap to the pressures that society can place on kids who excel.

Adult Abe glumly goes about his life, following a repetitive daily routine, spiraling in depression, and drinking whiskey for breakfast and dinner. His morose approach is reminiscent of Sam Spade and other gumshoes from the years of classic cinema. This connection might be lost on 21st century teens, but placing the story in a high school setting -- where Abe is sorely out of his element -- helps make The Kid Detective entertaining for both parents and teens. On the other hand, an honors student getting savagely murdered is pretty dark, as are some of the clues Abe turns up. While staying comically nimble, the movie's themes are mature. Still, it holds a worthwhile message for teens. Abe doesn't solve the mystery of how to to grow up painlessly, but, by the movie's end, he offers a clue.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about The Kid Detective 's message about how others' perceptions affect us. Is it easy to ignore what other people think about you?

Do you think this film satirizes, parodies, or pays homage to books and movies about kid detectives? What about classic movies about private eyes?

How are drinking and drugs depicted in The Kid Detective ? Are they glamorized? Does the movie normalize substance use? Do you think a student warning about the addictiveness of a drug is effective?

How do Abe's curiosity and perseverance pay off? Do you think his self-doubt and subsequent self-loathing interfered with his ability to solve the case? What do you think happens next for Abe?

Movie Details

In theaters : October 16, 2020
On DVD or streaming : January 19, 2021
Cast : Adam Brody , Sophie Nelisse , Wendy Crewson
Director : Evan Morgan
Inclusion Information : Female actors
Studio : Stage 6 Films
Genre : Comedy
Topics : Friendship , High School
Character Strengths : Curiosity , Perseverance
Run time : 99 minutes
MPAA rating : R
MPAA explanation : language, drug use, some sexual references, brief nudity and violence
Last updated : June 3, 2024

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‘the kid detective’: film review.

Evan Morgan's 'The Kid Detective' stars Adam Brody as a former wunderkind struggling with adulthood.

By John DeFore

John DeFore

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A movie that keeps revealing itself to be a little bit odder, a little bit better than you thought it was two minutes ago, Evan Morgan’s The Kid Detective is either a lucky accident or a balancing act more graceful than a first-time writer/director should expect to pull off.

The tale of a 32 year-old failure ( Adam Brody ) who was once his town’s most celebrated child, it spends much of its time looking, with some humor but little mockery, at how it feels to fail to live up to one’s potential. But it’s also the mystery yarn its title suggests, and one whose darker moments require us to point out that, title notwithstanding, this isn’t quite a family film. As suggested by scenes in which our hero recalls Kyle MacLachlan peeping through slats in Blue Velvet , it’s a place where curiosity and innocence are incompatible.

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Movie Review – The Kid Detective (2020)

October 13, 2020 by Robert Kojder

The Kid Detective , 2020.

Written and Directed by Evan Morgan. Starring Adam Brody, Peter MacNeill, Maurice Dean Wint, Kaitlyn Chalmers-Rizzato, Sarah Sutherland, Wendy Crewson, Jonathan Whittaker, Sophie Nélisse, Tzi Ma, Amalia Williamson, Jesse Noah Gruman, Marcus Zane, Lisa Truong, Sharon Crandall, Sophia Webster, Kira Gelineau, Dallas Edwards, Avery Esteves, and Bethanie Ho.

A once-celebrated kid detective, now 32, continues to solve the same trivial mysteries between hangovers and bouts of self-pity. Until a naive client brings him his first ‘adult’ case, to find out who brutally murdered her boyfriend.

Mysteries and private detectives are pretty much always glorified, so there is some inherent intrigue when it comes to writer and director Evan Morgan’s The Kid Detective , which follows an adult detective whose best days are behind him and from childhood, albeit not letting that deter him from recapturing glory. Unfortunately for Abe Applebaum (Adam Brody of last year’s Ready or Not ), no one is knocking on his door to bring him any cases, he is a person of mockery for his friends, and on the rare chance he is pursuing a lead, his parents are the ones tailing him rather than the media looking to pick up droplets of information for their own investigation. He’s a laughingstock and going nowhere in life; a big kid clinging to his dream of solving the wildest of crimes, and even though the movie is occasionally funny, it’s anything but a comedy.

Evan Morgan has actually chosen a dry tone, presumably because it’s the only way to blend the extremely dark truths of the town that come to light into solving a murder, something that technically is serious but approached with lightheartedness for the majority of the running time. It’s more of a big break for Abe, who seems to be trying to impress both the 17-year-old student Caroline (Sophie Nélisse) that has employed his services to investigate the death of her boyfriend (following disappointing results from law enforcement), and the audience themselves as he explains away his deductive psychology and how he solved relatively harmless cases around his school on his childhood ride to small-town fame that ended up with him receiving a key from the mayor.

There is also an early explanation as to why Abe’s once-promising sleuthing career took on a downward trajectory into nothingness. With that in mind, the proposition of solving a murder is both intimidating and exciting for him, although narratively the movie is not really exhilarating and lacks energy. As I write about The Kid Detective and continuously reflect on the film with its message in mind, that also feels like a deliberate choice. It could also be argued that the script goes too far in that direction, not really diving into its idiosyncratic characters. Abe actually tells Caroline that a case appearing simple on paper can turn out to be something unthinkably sinister, so much to the point where characters eventually have to question if the answers were better left unknown. The third act tone shift into horrifically dark material feels somewhat random and unfocused in the grander scheme of the plot, but one that fits a more realistic representation of crime investigation and the moral of the overall story.

The case also has a bigger picture aspect to it, likely biting off more than the film can chew. There are times where it’s hard not to wish Evan Morgan made two separate movies; the oddball comedy about a manchild detective, and a more centered study of psychology and aberrant crimes. It would be wrong to say he fails to thread those two sides together, but in doing so much of the characters and narrative are left at surface value. There’s no actual investment in the crime or the story. The Kid Detective doesn’t quite work as an enthralling character study either. Still, it’s a curious assortment of genres and messages that’s well-acted and not easy to shake.

Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★

Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, friend me on Facebook, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd , check out my personal non-Flickering Myth affiliated Patreon , or email me at [email protected]

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The Kid Detective Review: What Happens When Encyclopedia Brown Grows Up?

By Jeff Ames

Adam Brody … Abe Applebaum Sophie Nélisse … Caroline Sarah Sutherland … Lucy Jesse Noah Gruman … Young Abe Wendy Crewson … Mrs. Applebaum Jonathan Whittaker … Mr. Applebaum Peter MacNeill … Principal Erwin Lisa Truong … Lisa Sophia Webster … Jackie Dallas Edwards … Calvin Tzi Ma … Mr. Chang

Written and directed by Evan Morgan

The Kid Detective is now playing in theaters.

The Kid Detective Review

The Kid Detective opens with a montage of 12-year old “kid detective” Abe Applebaum solving cases around his neighborhood and enjoying the spoils of war. When he discovers the missing money from the local ice cream shop, the owner gives him free ice cream for life. Later, he is gifted an office in the middle of town to operate his business where he works with everyone from the Mayor to the local police chief on a variety of simple crimes that earn him nationwide celebrity status. Abe even gets a secretary, a young girl he pays in soda pop.

Flash forward some years later and we see Abe, now played by Adam Brody, fighting to get through a single day via alcohol, drugs, and prolonged arguments with his parents. He wanders through a town now devoid of color and littered with vagrants and drug dealers. When he goes to the ice cream shop to get his free scoop, the owner sneers. Even his secretary has been replaced by a woman who dresses only in black and can’t be bothered to answer the phone or fetch water for a guest.

We learn that Abe’s glamorous celebrity lifestyle screeched to a halt when he failed to solve the case of the mayor’s missing daughter, an event that also sent the town into a downward spiral. “I remember when this place was the life of the town on Friday nights,” Abe laments while sitting in a crusty old diner. “When did this town get so cynical?”

So, it goes with The Kid Detective , a film whose plot hinges on solving a grisly murder but whose main purpose is to explore the simple question: what happens when Encyclopedia Brown grows up?

As written and directed by Evan Morgan, in an astonishing big-screen debut, this dark comedy goes deeper than it has any right to and spins a captivating yarn whilst examining everything from the dangers of celebrity worship to the way in which kids in modern society lack proper decorum.

“What am I supposed to do, Abe? These kids have no concept of authority,” moans the tired old principal of the local high school where the nerds now distribute the drugs.

Indeed, everyone in the film seems lost amidst a world they no longer recognize, where even the ordinary, seemingly innocent teenager harbors some deep, dark, shocking secret. “I was so far ahead of the game and then one day I just woke up behind,” Abe exclaims to his beleaguered client, played with doe-eyed innocence by Sophie Nélisse, before wisely proclaiming, “It’s difficult to accept who you are in the head and who you are in the world.”

The Kid Detective follows in the footsteps of quirky film noirs like Rian Johnson’s Brick albeit laced with the dry humor of Chevy Chase’s Fletch . You’ll laugh at Abe’s exploits, such as when he gets stuck hiding in the closet of a suspect and must endure hours of childish antics in a sequence that ends on one of the better smash cuts in recent memory, but also empathize with his person; and Brody does a tremendous job crafting a character who is both likable and oddly detached.

The plot unfolds like a well-written novel and culminates with one of those patented last-second revelations that is both shocking and deeply profound. What do we do when our present fails to live up to our past? Now, that’s a great mystery worth solving.

Jeff lives and breathes all things sports and entertainment! As a die-hard Seahawks fan and devoted Utah Jazz supporter, you'll often find him cheering his heart out for his favorite teams. Jeff's passion for movies is unrivaled, and he has channeled that enthusiasm into a successful stint at ComingSoon.net. When he's not immersed in the world of media, Jeff loves spending quality time swearing at his favorite sports teams with his family. He also loves hats.

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What it's about.

In The Kid Detective, Adam Brody stars as Abe Applebaum, a once-beloved child prodigy turned pathetic P.I. stuck in the glory days of his past. At 32 years old, he’s still solving petty mysteries and coasting on his parents’ money, but things start to change when he is finally dealt with a real, adult case: a murder that confounds even the local police. As Abe uncovers more details about the case, he also unwittingly finds a connection to his traumatic past and begins a long-overdue coming-of-age journey.

Released during the first year of the pandemic, The Kid Detective understandably flew under the radar when it first came out, garnering sufficient critical praise but not enough fanfare. It will no doubt find a second life among film lovers, though; it’s too smart and riveting to go unnoticed. Most impressive is how director Evan Morgan, in his feature debut, deftly balances multiple genres in a movie that often feels as if Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums, Roman Polanski's Chinatown, and modern stoner humor were somehow rolled into one. The gags consistently amuse, the drawn-out mysteries pay off, and the human element persists throughout. Adam Brody, himself a kid celebrity back in the day, expertly carries this delightful and sobering film.

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Warning: SPOILERS for The Kid Detective .

Who killed Patrick Chang in The Kid Detective , and what does it all mean? Written and directed by Evan Morgan, in his feature-length directorial debut, The Kid Detective stars Adam Brody as the once-celebrated young sleuth Abe Applebaum. Now in his early thirties, dealing with hangovers and pining for his youth, Abe still continues to solve the same minor cases that arrive on his desk. Until, one day, he’s asked to solve a murder.

Caroline (Sophie Nélisse), a seventeen year-old high school student, is the one doing the asking. She wants to know who killed her boyfriend Patrick Chang, unconvinced that the local police have thoroughly investigated the crime. Abe accepts the case, at first with the self-aware reluctance of someone that has never actually solved a murder. And then, later in the film, with the urgency of someone who wants to prove that he didn’t peak too early in life. The Kid Detective toggles between modes as well, initially mining the humor of a washed-out investigator who is in way over his head. As it progresses, however, the story heads in a dark direction that will likely catch viewers by surprise because of the relative lightness of what came before. It’s a mix of comedy and drama, with a touch of noir.

Related: What Is Film Noir? Genre & Best Movies Explained

By the end of The Kid Detective , which received strong praise for Brody’s performance and its balancing of different tones, the movie’s main questions are answered — but others are raised as well. Here’s how the story’s central mysteries shake out, and what it all means for Abe and Caroline.

Who Killed Patrick and Kidnapped Gracie?

Abe eventually realizes that it is Principal Erwin ( The Good Witch star Peter MacNeill) who killed Patrick, solving another mystery in the process. Abe reaches the conclusion gradually, helped by all the information that he’d gathered over the course of his search. What ultimately helps him to crack the case, however, comes down to two seemingly unrelated moments. The first of these happens when the titular detective learns that he had been accusing the wrong person of a crime. Back in his teenage years, Abe had deduced that it was Rory Beans, a fellow classmate, that stole the school’s fundraiser money. But it’s casually revealed that Rory had been innocent all along. The second moment occurs when Abe looks over the origami-shaped paper roses, which Caroline regularly finds in her locker. Caroline had always assumed that the roses were a gesture of affection from Patrick, but she continues to receive them periodically even after his death. Abe remembers that the roses bear a striking resemblance to an item from an unsolved kidnapping that occurred decades prior.

Gracie (Kaitlyn Chalmers-Rizzato), Abe’s first assistant and the daughter of the Mayor, was kidnapped when she was 14. Abe recalls that Gracie would also sometimes get origami roses made out of paper, going to her home to confirm the fact with her mother. Armed with his new knowledge, Abe breaks into Erwin’s home through the window with the intention of confronting the principal. It’s not an easy task for Abe, who is shaking and stuttering as he explains how he’s certain that his longtime friend is the only one who could have committed both crimes. Erwin had access to all of the locker codes at his school, to inspect whether the teens were hiding drugs . This meant that Erwin could have been the one sending the roses. What seals Abe’s conviction, though, is the fact that Gracie disappeared only a week after Abe wrongly accused Rory of stealing the school’s money. Erwin had set the whole thing up, to test whether Abe was really the expert sleuth everyone believed him to be. Secure in the fact that Abe wouldn’t be able to figure out Gracie’s kidnapping, Erwin went ahead with the crime.

Seeing that Abe has finally put the pieces together, Erwin doesn’t bother denying any of it. He doesn’t express remorse for kidnapping Gracie, revealing the extent of his depravity. Erwin goes on to concede he murdered Patrick because he believed, incorrectly, that Patrick had been taking nude photos of Caroline and leaving them in his locker. The reason that Erwin takes such a personal interest in Caroline is because she’s the daughter he fathered with Gracie. Once Gracie gave birth, he left the newborn baby on the steps of a church. Being an educator, as he likes to refer to himself, Erwin couldn’t live with the consequences of his abuse scandal and the judgement of others. This is also why he stabs himself at the end of his conversation with Abe, favoring a painful death over having to experience the aftermath of his tarnished reputation.

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Why Does Abe Cry At The End?

The Kid Detective concludes on a potentially perplexing note. In the movie's final scene , which mirrors an earlier moment from the film, Abe’s parents pay him a visit in his home. Mom and dad now beam with pride at their son, understandably, given that he’s figured out Patrick’s murder. Abe should be pleased as well, since he also discovered an adult Gracie hidden away in a locked outhouse just a few steps away from Erwin home. But, instead of being happy about his results and getting the respect he’s always craved, Abe breaks down in tears after just a few polite questions.

This ending is foreshadowed in the beginning of The Kid Detective . Abe warns Caroline that, no matter how simple a case may seem, the outcomes tend to be shocking. Abe later dismisses the warning, telling Caroline that he was being pretentious, but it turns out to be true. Abe is simply overwhelmed by what he uncovers. It hits him especially hard, more so than Caroline who has arguably found a measure of peace, because Abe is also effectively mourning the memories of his youth. Throughout the dark comedy, it’s clear that the main character is stuck in the past. In fact, because so much of the movie focuses on Abe, it’s not always easy to tell that the story is taking place in the present. Abe is reluctant to use social media , even when it could help his investigations. He talks about how great his town used to be, discussing memories of the local diner with fondness and bemoaning the way things have changed. Curiously, on more than one occasion, Abe reveals that he thinks being gay is still a giant taboo. Most of those around him, conversely, react to the same thing with a collective shrug. It’s another sign that he’s frozen in a different era.

Abe, in part, thinks warmly of the past because it represents his glory days. But, separately, the character still carries the childish belief that his town and the people in it used to be so warm and wonderful. He convinces himself that it was the shock of Gracie’s kidnapping that fundamentally alters the fabric of his surroundings. To learn that it had been Erwin who had done such a horrific thing, someone close to him, someone he trusted, it’s too much for Abe and it shatters the perceptions he had been carrying with him. It fulfills the warning Abe gives to Caroline. As the director Evan Morgan explained in an interview with the Three Angry Nerds podcast, it forces Abe to grow up. The moment fits nicely into the larger point that The Kid Detective makes regarding perceptions.

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The Real Meaning of The Kid Detective

Adam Brody in The Kid Detective Featured #3

The Kid Detective contains a subtle bait-and-switch. The movie presents itself as a twist on the familiar saga of a former young sleuth who has lost their groove. By casting Brody in the lead role, given his early rise to fame as Seth Cohen on The OC , viewers are invited to think of Abe as someone who was unquestionably a bright young talent. While that is part of the dark comedy’s initial appeal, that simple reading is complicated by the discovery that Abe was never really that great at investigations. In flashbacks, and even as an adult, Abe resorts to solving cases by making snap judgements. They might pan out. But, as we learn, he also falsely accuses of Rory of stealing the school’s money.

The true meaning of The Kid Detective , instead, unveils itself in the tense confrontation between Abe and Erwin. It’s about the space between perception and reality. At one point, Abe tells Erwin that he’s not afraid of him. “Nobody is,” Erwin replies sadly. At another, just before killing himself , Erwin attempts to relate to Abe. “We both know how it feels when nobody takes you seriously,” he complains. In these two instances, Erwin seems to be confessing that he got away with murder because the way others perceived him made him above suspicion. He was seen, like he says, as an educator. A good and trustworthy man. Morgan’s script seems to be calling out the dangers of relying too heavily on perceptions. It’s a message that occurs elsewhere in the film, as well.

During one scene, Abe confines in Caroline that it’s hard to square the difference between how he sees himself and how the world sees him. Caroline agrees, saying she’s not as naïve and sheltered as everyone expects. The same is true of Patrick, even though he never actually appears on screen. His parents describe him as a mild-mannered honor student. But, as the narrative unfolds, it’s revealed Patrick was cheating on Caroline and selling drugs on the side. Once more, the perception doesn’t match up to reality. Once again, this divide has significant consequences.

The divide is most evident with Abe, however. At an early age, he was put on a pedestal and regarded as an authority. In truth, Abe was just a boy who was given too much responsibility by adults that should have known better. Abe internalized that sense of superiority, confessing that he would often be awake at night wondering if he was the smartest person in the world . Later in his life, Abe is listless because he’s failing to live up to a perception that was never completely accurate in the first place. The Kid Detective brilliantly begins in one form and ends in another. Anchored by Adam Brody’s exceptional performance, and finishing with his heartbreaking sobs, the film isn’t afraid to pull the rug out from under viewers.

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The Kid Detective

A once-celebrated kid detective, now 32, continues to solve the same trivial mysteries between hangovers and bouts of self-pity. Until a naive client brings him his first 'adult' case, to find out who brutally murdered her boyfriend.

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Overall Score

Rating summary.

In such a down year as this one has been for the majority of us, it is perfectly normal for audiences to want any reason to feel good. Luckily for us, The Kid Detective may just be the breath of fresh air we need if only to temporarily forget our troubles. This Canadian indie, darkly-comedic murder mystery takes more of an awkward and deadpan approach to the genre, resulting in a more often than not hilarious experience that also offers a surprising amount of depth beneath its simple exterior. That being said, the film and its sense of humor will certainly not be for everyone as it will ultimately go as far as the audience’s ability to get behind its titular character as it essentially rests on his shoulders for better or worse. Thankfully, the casting of Adam Brody in the lead role is definitely not a cause for concern as he brought to the table exactly what the film needed.

The Kid Detective follows Abe Applebaum (Brody), a former highly-regarded kid detective solving trivial small-time mysteries, who has continued his practice off the back of his past success now as an alcoholic, burnt out shell of an adult. Despite all this time, the naive Applebaum failed to truly grow up, developing an arguably cynical worldview that was allowed to proceed unchecked. However, he would soon find himself in a very grown-up situation once a teen girl named Caroline (Nélisse) brought him a case, asking him to solve the brutal murder of her boyfriend. Over the course of his career, Applebaum may have earned plenty of good will amongst his small town as his passion for solving crimes was certainly there but his time as a detective wasn’t always an easy one, also earning some enemies. Unfortunately, this case was unlike those he was used to therefore it would require a level of self-awareness and maturity that he would need to grow into pretty quick.

Nevertheless, Applebaum’s methods, while questionable, were entertaining to watch as he awkwardly went about his business. Meanwhile, the challenges of being an adult and the outside pressure to grow up were still there as his methods were not necessarily effective now and maybe rubbed some the wrong way. In the end, underneath that exterior was a human being capable of feelings such as frustration, confusion, and self-doubt and those moments were just as compelling to watch. The Kid Detective traverses a fine tonal line as it balances humor and drama in an interesting and nearly seamless way, offering subtle changes to reflect Applebaum’s character arc that saw him grow up over the course of the film. All the while, there was still the murder case which was not a trivial one by any means as it offered much more than what appeared on the surface. While that fine tonal line was a cause for concern come the film’s climax, it sticks the landing albeit a rough one.

Ultimately, the best part of The Kid Detective was Adam Brody’s stellar performance as Applebaum. As mentioned, his casting was perfect as his awkward charisma and energy fit the role perfectly. Brody was never not fun to watch as he stumbled his way through the film as he was hilarious thanks to his deadpan delivery, with the humor working more often than not, while also delivering the film’s dramatic beats as the imperfect and damaged detective. While the film was him for the most part, the supporting case still delivered solid performances in their own right. Nélisse excelled as Caroline, the almost counterbalance to Applebaum, thanks to her great chemistry with Brody while Sutherland, as Applebaum’s wisecracking goth secretary Lucy, was a scenestealer thanks to some hilarious exchanges with Applebaum.

At the end of the day, The Kid Detective is a fun little tale that is worth checking out wherever possible before it falls through the cracks at it is definitely worth audiences’ time.

still courtesy of levelFilm

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The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.

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Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Kid Detective’ on Starz, a Darkly Clever Satire of Classic Detective Noir

Where to stream:.

The Kid Detective
Stream It Or Skip It

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Now streaming on Starz, The Kid Detective is an entertaining film that failed to get any mainstream traction or even any underground-indie buzz when it was released last year. I guess that was 2020 in movies for you — a pandemic-derived glut of streaming options that all-too-easily buried a lot of good stuff in your content menus. Seems like this satirical comedy, the feature debut from Canadian director Evan Morgan, might’ve been a sleeper hit in an alternate timeline; so it goes, but it’s also fun to stumble over a little gem like this.

THE KID DETECTIVE : STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Abe Applebaum peaked early. He used to be the Encyclopedia Brownish wunderkind detective who charged 50 cents to solve the case of the missing cashbox, or to track down lost cats. He was so intuitive, he spoiled movies by figuring out the whodunits before they even dunit. He was such a boon to the community, the councilfolk in his perky little town of Willowbrook even gave him his own office in their quaint downtown Main St. His receptionist was a cheerful 14-year-old girl named Gracie (Kaitlyn Chalmers-Rizzato), who he paid with bottles of grape soda. And then poor Gracie was abducted, never to be seen again.

Now Abe is 32 (Adam Brody). He drags his rumpled, sorry ass out of bed every morning and shuffles by some empty bottles to get to the bathroom where he glumly urinates. His parents are concerned about him, as they should be. He still has his office, now managed by a surly goth (Sarah Sutherland). He’s still finding people’s lost cats. He never found Gracie, though, and he narrates like Sam Spade would if he was in the cast of Gilmore Girls . He failed Willowbrook, which has crumbled around him — empty storefronts, graffiti, the air of a perfect little burg haunted by a 20-year-old unsolved crime. Everybody’s wheels are just spinning here.

And then one day this dame parks herself in his office. She’s Caroline (Sophie Nelisse), a grieving widow of sorts, a teen whose boyfriend of three months — an eternity for high schoolers — was murdered. They found him in the river with 17 stab wounds. Everyone sees Caroline as a sweet naif, and now her innocence is long gone. Of course, she has her tragedies, like we all do, but not everybody knows them. And now she tasks Abe the sad-sack self-pitying drunkard with finding her some closure. He’ll have to shake down the ne’er-do-wells on The Stoop and confront the nefarious Red Shoe Gang and navigate the seamy underbelly of Willowbrook. He has yet to solve a murder. But there’s a first time for everything, right?

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: This parody of hardboiled noir could be a sneaky sequel to Rian Johnson’s debut Brick , which also seems to have inspired 2020 Amazon original Selah and the Spades .

Performance Worth Watching: Abe wears his virtues and flaws on his sleeve — flaws that self-perpetuate, and are increasingly dominant. Brody makes him more than just a recipient of comic schadenfreude, imbuing Abe with an existential longing that reveals he needs a purpose, and therefore has soul. We truly care what happens to this guy; somebody please refer him to a good psychotherapist.

Memorable Dialogue: Caroline explains how both her parents could have died while downhill skiing: “It was a very blustery day.”

Sex and Skin: Just Abe’s sad-ass bare ass when he wakes up dazed in a dumpster.

Our Take: Morgan successfully navigates a tonal highwire with The Kid Detective , sneakily allowing the darkness of uncertainty and the bleaker elements of the human condition seep into the cracks of a happy-go-lucky setting like a gas leak that doesn’t kill too many people, but poisons a bunch of them. We all know the idealism of Smalltown, USA or Canada or whatever — call it Mostly White People, North America — is a myth, and this movie reasserts how moral rot can set in anywhere.

Morgan funnels this idea through the character of Abe Applebaum, a man held in stasis since he lost his innocence at 12 years old (“I was so far ahead of the game, and one day I just woke up and was behind”). He learns a lot about himself retroactively — that he, the kid who was the apple of Willowbrook’s eye, is as unexceptional as everyone else. His fall from grace was a little harder than most. His potential for greatness went unfulfilled. The same folk who used to beam in his presence now sneer. Expectations weren’t met. And now he’s hitting bottom, drinking deep the dumpster juice of failure.

I’m making this sound like a downer. It’s frequently funny, especially in its specificities of setting and character; one of Abe’s signature private-eye moves is to hide in closets and spy on suspects, and in one amusing scene, he peers through the door slats watching a kid play Pong on his computer for hours and hours. All the details, many darkly comic, lock tightly together to tell a story about the secrets people keep — and how Abe is a man with no secrets because his greatest failure is public.

The overarching satirical-noirisms of The Kid Detective ring familiar, and the plot is a little too contrived at times, but Morgan makes sure the film delivers strong in the third act. It’s tidy, but then again, as the final shot asserts, it’s really not. Beneath the movie’s bemused veneer is an admirably realist core. Nobody here is laughing at a kid being stabbed 17 times. It’s laughing at how some might believe such things aren’t possible in their delusional bubble, or that true closure is ever truly attainable. Hard lessons; life goes on.

Our Call: STREAM IT. The Kid Detective is a real gem — clever and enjoyable on the surface, with a rich subtextual current beneath.

Should you stream or skip the darkly clever satire #TheKidDetective (with Adam Brody!) on @STARZ ? #SIOSI — Decider (@decider) May 5, 2021

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba .

Watch The Kid Detective on Starz

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The Kid Detective is actually getting good reviews

That's surprising because the trailer and release schedule indicated that Sony had no faith in the movie. Now seeing it actually has good reviews on rotten/Metacritic and all the leading major publications is actually surprising.

I remember first seeing Adam Brody on Smallville , always wanted him to have his big break but it's a ttough business.

Has anyone seen this movie? Without spoiling it, is it good??

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'A Good Girl's Guide to Murder' a very modern, very British take on Nancy Drew

Amateur teen detective looks for clues in homes and on phones on netflix’s addictive but sensitive mystery series..

When Pip (Emma Myers) investigates the death of a popular local teen, she gets help from the suspected killer’s brother (Zain Iqbal) on “A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder.”

A fortnight ago, we talked about how Apple TV+ made the right move in doling out episodes of the murder mystery series “Lady in the Lake” one week at a time after a two-episode premiere, as the material was so dense and dour and brutal, and layered with so many social issues, that the viewer might benefit from some breathing room between chapters. Now comes the Netflix series “A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder,” with all six episodes dropping Thursday, and in this particular case, binge away!

For one thing, most of the episodes clock in at a fast-paced 40 minutes or so (the last two are 47 and 48 minutes, respectively), and while creator Poppy Cogan’s largely faithful adaptation of Holly Jackson’s book series of the same name is indeed about a murder and a subsequent suicide, it plays like a 21st century version of “Nancy Drew” and is relatively light in onscreen depictions of violence and peril. Given the material, it’s not exactly breezy — but it’s the streaming series equivalent of a page-turner you zip through while sitting on the porch or relaxing on the beach.

Throughout the series run, “A Good Girl’s Guide” is peppered with decidedly British dialogue; in the first episode alone, one character says, “Do you have any more of those posh crisps?”, while another intones, “I’ve heard you’re a bit of a Nosy Parker.” Excellent!

Actually, though, it’s the American actress Emma Myers (the werewolf roommate Enid on Netflix’s “Wednesday”) who affects an impressive Brit accent to play 17-year-old amateur sleuth Pippa “Pip” Fitz-Amobi, who lives in the fictional English town of Little Kilton. For Pip’s final-year Application Essay, she has chosen to revisit a tragedy that rocked the town some five years earlier, when the popular and beautiful local girl Andie Bell (India Lillie Davies) was murdered and her boyfriend, Sal Singh (Rahul Pattni), left behind an incriminating text message before dying by suicide.

In quietly powerful ‘Fancy Dance,’ teen holds out hope of reuniting with her missing mother

Pip is haunted by brief encounters she had with first Andie and then Sal on the day of Andie’s murder, and she’s not convinced the kindly Sal, who had never been in trouble before, is the real killer. Armed with a small notebook, ready to press “Record” on her phone at any given moment, Pip proves to be a dogged and intuitive private investigator with a real knack for getting Andie’s and Sal’s friends, relatives and associates to open up, on the record. She’s also really good at sneaking into parties and houses and other places in search of clues, courting danger and in a few instances finding herself in real trouble. Most episodes of “A Good Girl’s Guide” follow an almost comfortable, familiar pattern, with Pip uncovering new clues and the story taking semi-surprising twists, even as she receivers a number of anonymous threats warning her to back off the case, or else.

Zain Iqbal turns in fine and empathetic work as Sal’s brother Ravi, who eventually becomes the Watson to Pip’s Holmes. The overcrowded supporting cast includes a couple of characters who aren’t particularly germane to the proceedings, but standouts include Asha Banks as Pip’s best friend, Cara; Mathew Baynton as Cara’s widowed father, Elliot, a popular teacher at their school; Jackson Bews as Dan, a young police officer with personal connections to the case, and Henry Ashton as Max, who gives off 1980s entitled-prep school villain vibes. (Not that we’re saying Max is the villain. There might be more than one villain. Or maybe it turns out that Sal indeed killed Andie and then took his own life. But that wouldn’t make for much of a murder mystery, would it?)

This being a modern-day mystery, much of “A Good Girl’s Guide” centers on cell phones and text messages and tracking apps, etc., though Pip does engage in a lot of old-fashioned, shoe-leather gumshoe work, relying on her wits and instincts to get those interviews and to gain access to locales that might hold vital clues. With Cogan handling most of the writing, and directing duties split between Dolly Wells and Tom Vaughan, this is a well-written show with excellent pacing and timing, handling sometimes sensitive material about abuse and suicide with care. (I was taken aback by a choice made during a birthday party scene that comes across as gratuitous and mean-spirited, especially because it’s in glaring contrast to the overall tone of the show.) With Emma Myers creating a performance that has us rooting for and caring about Pip from the moment she endeavors to crack the case, “A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder” makes for a satisfying viewing experience that won’t tax your soul or haunt your dreams.

The Turkish Detective star Haluk Bilginer's life away from the cameras

The turkish actor rose to fame on eastenders in the 1980s.

Haluk Bilginer is back on our screens in the BBC's hit crime drama, The Turkish Detective , which follows Inspector Çetin Ikmen and his team as they solve crimes across Turkey.

The 70-year-old actor is a familiar face to many thanks to his role as Mehmet Osman in EastEnders back in the 1980s. But how much do you know about his life away from the cameras? Find out more about his career and two marriages here…

Haluk Bilginer's acting career

Haluk was one of the original cast members of EastEnders , having played Mehmet Osman from the year of its inception in 1985 to 1989.

In 1992, Haluk moved back to Turkey permanently, having spent several years dividing his time between London and Istanbul.

After a period of starring in Turkish plays, films and TV shows, Haluk returned to British television as a guest star in an episode of Spooks , in which he played Emre Celenk in season three. He later starred in the 2009 action thriller film, The International , as a Turkish high-tech missile guidance system dealer opposite Clive Owen and Naomi Watts.

Since then, he's appeared in more American and British productions, including 2018's Halloween film starring Jamie Lee Curtis and in Prime Video's spy series, Alex Rider .

In 2019, Haluk won Turkey's first-ever International Emmy Award for Best Performance by an Actor for his portrayal of Agah in the Turkish series Şahsiyet .

Haluk Bilginer holds the International Emmy for 'Sahsiyet' in the category of Performance by an Actor at the 47th International Emmy Awards Gala at the New York Hilton hotel in New York, USA, 25 November 2019

His latest role is in the BBC's hit crime show, The Turkish Detective . The eight-parter, which is based on Barbara Nadel's Inspector Ikmen's novels, follows a police detective working in the homicide unit in Istanbul.

Haluk Bilginer's marriages to movie stars

For almost a decade, Haluk was married to Turkish actress and singer Zuhal Olcay, who began her career as a stage actress before going on to star in various Turkish films.

The couple met on the set of the 1987 TV show, Gecenin Öteki Yüzü (The Other Side of the Night) , and tied the knot five years later in 1992. They went on to guest star in the American adventure series, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.

In 1990, Haluk and Zuhal joined forces and set up a theatre together. Sadly, six years later the theatre was destroyed by a fire, prompting Haluk to take on more TV and film roles to raise money for another theatre.

In 2004, the pair decided to go their separate ways and two years later, Haluk married singer and actress Aşkın Nur Yengi.

Turkish singer Askin Nur Yengi performs at the Paradiso in Amsterdam, Netherlands on 12th January 1992

Aşkın is famed in Turkey for her successful music career and has also appeared in a handful of Turkish shows.

During their eight-year marriage, the couple welcomed a daughter Nazlı, who was born in 2006.

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Sonic the Hedgehog 3

James Marsden, Tom Butler, Colleen O'Shaughnessey, Tony McCarthy, Andy M Milligan, LeChristopher Williams, Nathan Hall, Amedeo Fedeli, James Wright, Jorma Taccone, Tika Sumpter, James Wolk, Ben Schwartz, Sofia Pernas, Lee Majdoub, Dempsey Gibson, Stuart Whelan, Alfredo Tavares, and Joshmaine Joseph in Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (2024)

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Jim Carrey, Keanu Reeves, Luke Freeborn, Tom Butler, Tom Holkenborg, Neal H. Moritz, Colleen O'Shaughnessey, Toru Nakahara, Brandon Trost, Tony McCarthy, Josh Miller, Pat Casey, Andy M Milligan, LeChristopher Williams, Amedeo Fedeli, James Wright, Jorma Taccone, Jeff Fowler, Tika Sumpter, Hitoshi Okuno, James Wolk, Ben Schwartz, Al LeVine, Sofia Pernas, Lee Majdoub, Toby Ascher, John Whittington, Dempsey Gibson, Stuart Whelan, Alfredo Tavares, Cristo Fernández, and Joshmaine Joseph in Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (2024)

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Trivia The film makers of the prior movies have mentioned playing both "Sonic Adventure 2" and the "Shadow The Hedgehog" solo game for inspiration. The film is also inspired by narrative elements from the Saturday morning animated television series "Sonic the Hedgehog" (1993 - 1994).
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Parents' guide to 'Deadpool & Wolverine': Is new Marvel movie appropriate for kids?

What he does best, Wolverine has said, isn't very nice. You might want to keep that in mind if you're thinking of making "Deadpool & Wolverine" ( in theaters Friday ) a family movie night.

Over the past couple of decades, dozens of movies featuring Marvel Comics characters from X-Men to the Avengers to Spider-Man have been bringing together old fans while making new ones.

And while you might be looking forward to reuniting with Hugh Jackman's Wolverine, or just can't wait to see what Disney-owned Marvel is going to do with this latest installment of its expansive cinematic universe as the studio folds in the franchises acquired from 20th Century Fox , don't shrug off that R rating.

Here's what parents need to know about Marvel's "Deadpool & Wolverine":

What is the new Deadpool movie about?

"Deadpool & Wolverine," directed by Shawn Levy, is a sequel to "Deadpool" (2016) and Deadpool 2" (2018).

The film brings together Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) and Wolverine (Jackman) as they reluctantly team up to face down foes, try to make up for past mistakes and hopefully — amid the action and nonstop jokes — save the world.

More: 'Deadpool & Wolverine': What to know before you see the Marvel sequel

Why is 'Deadpool & Wolverine' rated R?

The Motion Picture Association gave "Deadpool & Wolverine" an R rating for "strong bloody violence and language throughout, gore and sexual references." It wasn't kidding.

This movie is two hours and seven minutes of quips and lots of heart, yes, but also severed appendages, savage and unflinching fights, foul jokes, sexual innuendo and enough f-bombs to make Samuel L. Jackson blush.

The two previous Deadpool movies also had R ratings, so it's unsurprising this third installment does, too, even under Disney.

The company's CEO “Bob Iger had said very early on that the other Deadpools were R, so this could be R," Marvel president Kevin Feige told Deadline Monday at the movie's premiere in New York. "And we weren’t going to undo any of the great work Ryan had done in those first movies. So that was never in question."

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It is OK to take kids to see 'Deadpool & Wolverine'?

In short: no. To paraphrase Wolverine, you picked the wrong movie, bub.

If you've seen the first two "Deadpool" films, this one matches them in terms of topics and tone. If you missed them, that may explain why you're wondering if this one is OK for the little ones or even most teens. It really isn't. The movie may be fine for supervised older teens, though parents should be prepared for uncomfortable scenes and having to explain the explicit and mature topics.

Disney owns the "Deadpool" franchise now, but that doesn't mean this sequel is suddenly gentler or family friendly. In just the first few minutes, there is blood everywhere and maybe three butt or penis jokes.

The movie has scenes of brutal violence, drug abuse, casual suicidal ideation and many masturbation- and sex-related conversations.

So no, the movie is not appropriate for children, no matter how much your kids love Marvel movies or comic books or superheroes. The jokes will go over their head and some of the scenes may be confusing, jarring and even frightening.

Enjoy this one responsibly with other adults.

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An Olympics Scene Draws Scorn. Did It Really Parody ‘The Last Supper’?

Some church leaders and politicians have condemned the performance from the opening ceremony for mocking Christianity. Art historians are divided.

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A screen depicting a person painted in blue near fruit. Behind is a rainy Paris street with part of the Eiffel Tower and Olympic rings visible.

By Yan Zhuang

A performance during the Paris Olympics’ opening ceremony on Friday has drawn criticism from church leaders and conservative politicians for a perceived likeness to Leonardo da Vinci’s depiction of a biblical scene in “The Last Supper,” with some calling it a “mockery” of Christianity.

The event’s planners and organizers have denied that the sequence was inspired by “The Last Supper,” or that it intended to mock or offend.

In the performance broadcast during the ceremony, a woman wearing a silver, halo-like headdress stood at the center of a long table, with drag queens posing on either side of her. Later, at the same table, a giant cloche lifted, revealing a man, nearly naked and painted blue, on a dinner plate surrounded by fruit. He broke into a song as, behind him, the drag queens danced.

The tableaux drew condemnation among people who saw the images as a parody of “The Last Supper,” the New Testament scene depicted in da Vinci’s painting by the same name. The French Bishops’ Conference, which represents the country’s Catholic bishops, said in a statement that the opening ceremony included “scenes of mockery and derision of Christianity,” and an influential American Catholic, Bishop Robert Barron of Minnesota, called it a “gross mockery.”

The performance at the opening ceremony, which took place on and along the Seine on Friday, also prompted a Mississippi-based telecommunications provider, C Spire, to announce that it would pull its advertisements from Olympics broadcasts. Speaker Mike Johnson described the scene as “shocking and insulting to Christian people.”

The opening ceremony’s artistic director, Thomas Jolly, said at the Games’ daily news conference on Saturday that the event was not meant to “be subversive, or shock people, or mock people.” On Sunday, Anne Descamps, the Paris 2024 spokeswoman, said at the daily news conference, “If people have taken any offense, we are, of course, really, really sorry.”

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IMAGES

The Kid Detective
The Kid Detective
Movie Review
The Kid Detective (2020) Movie Review
The Kid Detective (2020) Movie Review
Film review: The Kid Detective

VIDEO

The Kid Detective
When Kid Detective Solves The Hardest Case In The Universe…(Part 6) 😱
When The Kid Detective Solves The Impossible Case…💡(Part 5)
When The Kid Detective Plays Hide & Seek… 🫣 (Part 2)
When The Kid Detective Needs Backup…😨 (Part 4)
A former Kid Detective must solve a past case to save a girl in the present

COMMENTS

The Kid Detective movie review (2020)
Evan Morgan 's "The Kid Detective" takes place in a funny world we rarely get to laugh about. Willowbrook is a small town where everyone seems to know each other, and wacky crimes sometimes involving the Red Shoe Gang ensue. A time capsule was stolen; a school fundraiser box went missing. Such mysteries were solved by the town's more ...
The Kid Detective
A low-key charmer led by Adam Brody's sharp performance, The Kid Detective uncovers dark comedy in a story of unfulfilled childhood potential. Read Critics Reviews. TOP CRITIC. For me it the funny ...
The Kid Detective
Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 11, 2024. M.N. Miller Ready Steady Cut. The Kid Detective satisfies a craving for a different type of detective story with its dark comedy and a sharp ...
'The Kid Detective' Review: Noir-esque Whodunit Is No Child's Play
Adam Brody delivers a layered performance as a past-his-prime PI in debuting director Evan Morgan's sharp crime tale with shockingly dark twists. Don't be fooled by the cheery ring of the Disney ...
'The Kid Detective' review: A genre-bender for grown-ups
Review: Don't be fooled by the title — 'The Kid Detective' is a clever genre-bender for grown-ups By Michael Ordoña Staff Writer Oct. 15, 2020 4:15 PM PT
The Kid Detective
Vancouver Film Critics Circle. • 1 Nomination. A once-celebrated kid detective, now 31, continues to solve the same trivial mysteries between hangovers and bouts of self-pity. Until a naive client brings him his first 'adult' case, to find out who brutally murdered her boyfriend.
The Kid Detective (2020)
The Kid Detective: Directed by Evan Morgan. With Kaitlyn Chalmers-Rizzato, Adam Brody, Kaleb Horn, Wendy Crewson. A once-celebrated kid detective, now 32, continues to solve the same trivial mysteries between hangovers and bouts of self-pity; until a naive client brings him his first 'adult' case to find out who brutally murdered her boyfriend.
'The Kid Detective' Review: Adam Brody in Curious Black Comedy
Sony's Stage 6 Films will release "The Kid Detective" in select theaters on Friday, October 16. As new movies open in theaters during the COVID-19 pandemic, IndieWire will continue to review ...
The Kid Detective review
0. 3.5. Summary. Adam Brody gives a career-best performance in The Kid Detective that is equal parts charming, funny, and surprisingly bittersweet. At first glance, a film starring Adam Brody as a down on his luck former child detective seemed easily dismissible. What could have been a poor homage to a clear rip-off of the USA network show ...
The Kid Detective
The Kid Detective is a 2020 Canadian mystery comedy-drama film written and directed by Evan Morgan and starring Adam Brody, Sophie Nélisse, Wendy Crewson, Sarah Sutherland, and Tzi Ma.It was inspired by the Encyclopedia Brown book series.. The Kid Detective was screened in the industry program at the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival. It received a national theatrical release in the U ...
The Kid Detective Movie Review
A character is beaten up at a bar. Viewers are tol. Parents need to know that The Kid Detective is a comedic mystery about what happens to a prodigy who's burdened by high expectations. Abe Applebaum (Adam Brody) gained notoriety as a child detective who failed when he wasn't able to solve the mystery of his best friend's disappearance.
The Kid Detective (2020) Movie Reviews
Buy a Ticket, Save $8 on Select Fandango at Home Despicable Me and Minions Films to stream at home. A once-celebrated kid detective, now 31, continues to solve the same trivial mysteries between hangovers and bouts of self-pity. Until a naïve client brings him his first 'adult' case-to find out who brutally murdered her boyfriend.
The Kid Detective (2020) Movie Review
The answer offered by Morgan's movie seems to be: only with a great deal of effort. The Kid Detective is a unique coming of age story, using a high concept premise and noir style to explore the darker realities of growing up. Abe Applebaum (Adam Brody) was a highly successful kid detective, solving relatively minor cases like who stole the ...
'The Kid Detective': Film Review
Sony Pictures. A movie that keeps revealing itself to be a little bit odder, a little bit better than you thought it was two minutes ago, Evan Morgan's The Kid Detective is either a lucky ...
Movie Review
The Kid Detective, 2020. Written and Directed by Evan Morgan. Starring Adam Brody, Peter MacNeill, Maurice Dean Wint, Kaitlyn Chalmers-Rizzato, Sarah Sutherland, Wendy Crewson, Jonathan Whittaker ...
The Kid Detective Review: A Dark Mystery Leads to A Mind ...
The Kid Detective is a Canadian production from Woods Entertainment. It will be released theatrically in the United States by Sony Pictures on October 16th.+ Movie and TV Reviews
The Kid Detective Review: What Happens When Encyclopedia Brown Grows Up?
The Kid Detective Review The Kid Detective opens with a montage of 12-year old "kid detective" Abe Applebaum solving cases around his neighborhood and enjoying the spoils of war.
The Kid Detective (2020) Movie Review
In The Kid Detective, Adam Brody stars as Abe Applebaum, a once-beloved child prodigy turned pathetic P.I. stuck in the glory days of his past. At 32 years old, he's still solving petty mysteries and coasting on his parents' money, but things start to change when he is finally dealt with a real, adult case: a murder that confounds even the ...
The Kid Detective Ending & Killer Identity Explained
The Kid Detective contains a subtle bait-and-switch. The movie presents itself as a twist on the familiar saga of a former young sleuth who has lost their groove. By casting Brody in the lead role, given his early rise to fame as Seth Cohen on The OC, viewers are invited to think of Abe as someone who was unquestionably a bright young talent.While that is part of the dark comedy's initial ...
The Kid Detective (2020)
Movie and TV Reviews A start-to-finish smart, funny film that might force you to look introspectively or even romanticize younger days but won't feel sappy or stuffy, The Kid Detective is a rarity ...
The Kid Detective
The Kid Detective is a stellar darkly comedic murder mystery thrives with a sharp script and the awkward charisma of Adam Brody. Movies. Movie News; Movie Reviews. ... Movie Review. The Kid Detective - A Stellar Indie Murder Mystery Dark Comedy. Keith Noakes November 6, 2020 90 /100 n/a 8 min. Starring
'The Kid Detective' Starz Movie Review: Stream It or Skip It?
The overarching satirical-noirisms of The Kid Detective ring familiar, and the plot is a little too contrived at times, but Morgan makes sure the film delivers strong in the third act. It's tidy ...
The Kid Detective is actually getting good reviews : r/movies
The Kid Detective is actually getting good reviews. That's surprising because the trailer and release schedule indicated that Sony had no faith in the movie. Now seeing it actually has good reviews on rotten/Metacritic and all the leading major publications is actually surprising. I remember first seeing Adam Brody on Smallville , always wanted ...
Where to Watch and Stream True Detective
True Detective, which stars Rachel McAdams, is currently available to stream on Max, Max (Via Hulu), and Spectrum On Demand, where you can get caught up on the newest season or rewatch old ...
'A Good Girl's Guide to Murder' review: On Netflix, a very modern, very
'A Good Girl's Guide to Murder' a very modern, very British take on Nancy Drew Amateur teen detective looks for clues in homes and on phones on Netflix's addictive but sensitive mystery series.
The Turkish Detective star Haluk Bilginer's life away from the cameras
Haluk Bilginer is back on our screens in the BBC's hit crime drama, The Turkish Detective, which follows Inspector Çetin Ikmen and his team as they solve crimes across Turkey.. The 70-year-old ...
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (2024)
Sonic the Hedgehog 3: Directed by Jeff Fowler. With Ben Schwartz, Colleen O'Shaughnessey, Idris Elba, Keanu Reeves. Plot under wraps
'Deadpool & Wolverine': Is new Marvel movie appropriate for kids?
This movie is two hours and seven minutes of quips and lots of heart, yes, but also severed appendages, savage and unflinching fights, foul jokes, sexual innuendo and enough f-bombs to make Samuel ...
An Olympics Scene Draws Scorn. Did It Really Parody 'The Last Supper
Some have also compared the scene to a painting of the gods of Olympus called "The Feast of the Gods."Painted by the Dutch artist Jan van Bijlert in the 17th century, it shows gods crowded ...
'Deadpool & Wolverine's' four TOTALLY INSANE cameos explained
Speaking of past comic book movie outings, Wesley Snipes' fierce and vampiric Marvel superhero Blade comes back in "Deadpool & Wolverine," after leading his own trilogy of movies back in the ...