DVD Review: Skate Kitchen

Time to shred.

Camille (Rachelle Vinberg) is an awkward 18 year old girl in New York with a tough relationship with her mother who doesn't approve of her love of skateboarding. Especially after the pretty serious injury the film opens with. Camille finds solace in an Instagram feed called "Skate Kitchen", and when she meets up with the girls who run it she's finally found her place. 

Director Crystal Moselle is apparently the first person to base a feature off of an actual Instagram feed. It's a good idea. How often do you find movies about girls who love skateboarding? We're almost always given the teenage boy's views instead and showing adult women with a love for the sport is refreshing.

But the manufactured drama she adds brings this film down and makes me wish that I had just watched a documentary of the Skate Kitchen girls instead of the narrative created for them. The issue is, these girls seems really interesting. They're a diverse bunch and their chemistry is apparent, but not all of them are actors and it shows. There's nothing wrong with that of course, but had this been a documentary, it wouldn't have mattered at all. The fact that the film is almost shot in a doc fashion just makes it all even more apparent. 

Camille leaves her mom, played by Elizabeth Rodriguez (one of the only two "actors first" in the cast other than Jaden Smith) after a fight. Then she's given the added drama of a live triangle that honestly felt beneath all of the characters involved. It temporarily ruins her friendships, then everything is wrapped up with a pretty bow in the end. It's a boring story that's been done to death. I'd rather know how all these skaters came together in the first place. Who's idea was it to curate "Skate Kitchen?" Tell me about each woman. That would've been the better film.

Recommended: No

Grade: C-

Memorable Quote: "Oh no, you got credit carded?" - Eliza (Jules Lorenzo)