"The Kid" - Film Review

The Kid is essentially one big excuse to throw Charlie Chaplin’s Tramp together with a kid (Jackie Coogan). It’s a conceit that actually has a lot of what if potential and the film captures this extraordinarily well. The Tramp is practically a big old kid and so putting him together with an actual kid is an amusing sight gag in and of itself.

A Woman (Edna Purviance) loses her child and the Tramp of course comes across him abandoned in an alleyway. He wants to get rid of the kid right away but his sense of decency inevitably causes him to raise the child. So we have a big man-child amusingly attempting to raise a kid. The film cuts ahead five years so the film can utilize an adorable five year old garbed up like a street urchin.  

If The Kid doesn’t always reach the unqualified masterful heights of Chaplin’s other works (Modern Times, Gold Rush, City Lights), it still has much in common with them. There’s a deep reserve of humanism that Chaplin draws upon in his stories, turning something that could be maudlin into something with a great deal of deeply felt emotion. When the Tramp loses the Kid, it’s incredibly tragic and sad. When the Woman runs into the Kid without realizing he’s her kid, it pulls at all the right heart strings. 

The film is also a rather funny one. Chaplin uses his physicality for some glorious slapstick, and he uses the Kid’s pint sized nature to make some visual contrasts that are hilarious. The Kid dupes a bumbling cop; he squares off against a bigger kid (and then his truly big brother) – with the Tramp’s pride leading him to encourage and join in on the fight. 

The blend of humor and pathos is arguably the film's best quality. When agents from an orphanage attempt to take away the kid, the Tramp stumbles across roof tops risking his life to get the kid back. It's simultaneously rather funny and also heartfelt and sad.  

It’s also a film of inventiveness and playfulness. There’s a dream sequence at film’s end that doesn’t entirely work but is pretty brazen. The Tramp imagines himself in heaven. Here Chaplin takes advantage of the setting (the appearance of angels) to show people “flying” for brief periods of time. 

There's even a small dose of social commentary in the film. While it's nothing as sharp as Gold Rush or Modern Times, there's still a solid message in there about the effects of poverty.  

The Kid is a great silent comedy; moving and funny in equal measures. 

Grade: A