Adapted from the novel of the same name by Delphine de Vignan, Children Are Kings is a detective series from Disney + which tickled my curiosity with its underlying subject. Indeed the series deals with mini influencers and these children propelled with more or less consent into the stars of social networks, all through a detective story which unfortunately turns out to be as flat and superficial as the exploration of its underlying subject.
Children Are Kings tells us the story of Kimmy, a six-year-old girl, social media superstar with her mother's channel called Happy Récré. When the little girl is mysteriously kidnapped, the police find themselves confronted with the world of influencers in short pants, their parents, their fans and everything that their existence drains of jealousies, twisted people, media hysteria and dangers.
There was potential in this series, especially in relation to the many underlying themes concerning the use of children on social networks, enough in any case to offer a rich, documented and relevant series which Children Are Kings will never be. We will just be entitled to a well-calibrated morality and a ton of clichés most often stated with a serious face during dialogues, each more conventional than the other, such as: “You exploited your daughter to sell t-shirts made by other exploited children”and yes it denounces seriously and with a certain finesse of analysis. On the other hand, not much on the brands and companies that support these practices and even less on the crass complacency of the networks that host this type of content without any problem of conscience as long as they make money. We will therefore remain on the polite surface of things while lecturing parents who are inevitably abusive and emphasizing the fact that it is still not right to do this kind of thing. There is absolutely no depth, no relevant analysis, no reflection that goes beyond the simple observation and the predigested moral lesson. And as it was necessary to find a suspect for each episode in order to relaunch a pseudo sluggish suspense, we will be treated to a caricature of a low-brow video game player who harassed the mother with salacious messages, to the pedophile service, to the ex-boyfriend who hides a dark secret that is revealed as soon as he appears on the screen and to the YouTube competitor who shamelessly recovers the advertising contracts lost since the disappearance of the kid. Everything is written once again without an ounce of finesse or measure, always further undermining the truth of the whole. It's very simple, everything is so big and superficial that nothing ever works completely and it's not the detective plot and even less the characters that will help us immerse ourselves at least in this story. We have a bit of the feeling that the series wants to reach as many people as possible with its message that it always highlights everything three times so that everyone understands what needs to be understood and remembered.
First of all, what an idea to have chosen Geraldine Nakache as a police inspector apart for the pleasure of counter employment? The actress may have pulled her face during the six episodes, having made a serious face with a scar and oily skin to play the deep girl who drank lots of hats and especially not the superficial girl, she is almost never credible in the role. The scene during which she loses her temper during an interrogation may even be the funniest sequence of her career, too bad that's not really the goal here. Afterwards I'm certainly a little mean but given the writing of the characters and the overall mediocrity of the direction of the actors, the poor thing is probably not the only one to blame in the matter. Chantal Lauby as a stuck-up Catholic mother from the derch, Jacques Weber as an old sixty-eighter gaucho who bellows against the consumer society, Panayotis Pascot as a fragile young cop are some examples of characters characterized by two or three strong writing traits and who, despite their talents, find themselves a little trapped in caricature. If Doria Tillier does not do too badly with her character as a loving but narcissistic mother, manipulative and fragile, the character is once again presented far too crudely for us to fully believe it. The one who stands out in the casting is India Hair, but hey I'm not very objective since I love this actress.
Children Are Kings is also riddled with ridiculous and embarrassing moments as they are constructed haphazardly and fall miserably flat. When little Kimmy's fans at the foot of her building started singing along to her favorite song, I wanted to immolate myself on the spot. When the inspector and Kimmy's mother suggest a semblance of the beginning of a romantic relationship I simply burst out laughing because it's so haphazard and totally useless. And when the inspector with a serious face returned to her car in the rain of a metallic blue night to the sound of melancholy pop I remembered Brel who sang that he you shouldn't play rich when you don't have the money because you don't want to play an HBO thriller when you're in the mood for a TV movie for France 3.
Children Are Kings is hardly a big disappointment since I objectively and ultimately didn't expect much from it. The legitimate message on the dangers of children's exposure to the networks is not sufficient to qualify the series as useful or relevant and the police intrigue which could prove very anxiety-provoking (we are still talking about the kidnapping of a six-year-old girl) remains bland and without the slightest dramatic tension because everything is predictable and soft on the knees.
