I recall this film getting generally positive review when it came out. Checking Rotten Tomatoes confirms my memory is correct since My Kid Could Paint That nets a 93% rating. Which means I have some explaining to do since I really, really did not like it.

Ostensibly the story of Marla Olmstead, a 4-year-old whose paintings sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars, My Kid Could Paint That squanders the opportunity to delve into the meaning of abstract art and creativity, as well as the exploitation of children. Unfortunately, the film only touches briefly on these issues. I had read a bit about this story at the time and was hoping the film would provide more insight, but it remains firmly in the shallow end of the pool.

My Kid Could Paint That clocks in at under an hour-an-a-half but still feels too long. The filmmakers spend too much time setting up the premise before introducing the supposedly unfair portrayal of the family on 60 Minutes. However, the 60 Minutes episode seemed to raise many of the questions that were on my mind about how the parents may have been manipulating their daughter.

The director, Amir Bar-Lev, inserts himself as a character in the film, much to the detriment of the proceedings. He portrays himself as being trusted by the family, thereby getting unprecedented access to them. Later, when Bar-Lev has some doubts about, he is downright cloying when approaching them, belying his inability to ask the hard questions this film needs to be asking. It’s almost as if Bar-Lev doesn’t even understand the nature of documentary film making, as he makes observations along the lines of “oh, by being here and filming this, I might be influencing the outcome.”

The film touches on the question about the nature of abstract art and speaks with one critic on the subject but fails to really address the issue, especially the issue of intentionality. Even if Marla made these painting solely on her own, she cannot possibly have an idea of what she is trying to create or have any framework of what abstract art is reacting against.

Bar-Lev fails to address some of the inconsistent comments by the mother and by Tony Brunelli, the owner of the gallery who first showed Marla’s work. When the 60 Minutes episode first aired, Laura Olmstead professed to being glad that her daughter’s life as a popular artist was over. But she also pounced on the chance to throw her daughter back into the spotlight the first chance she had and professed that she was glad the 60 Minutes controversy was over. Similarly, when the 60 Minutes controversy came to light, Brunelli claimed that, by showing Marla’s work, he was making a statement about the inauthenticity of abstract art (Brunelli is a photo-realist painter). But when Marla’s work started to sell again, he changed his tune.

Both these instances point to one of the major failings of the film. Namely, that Bar-Lev never gets to the motivating factor that drove the parents to continually push their daughter into the spotlight. Laura Olmstead speaks a little toward the end about how she might possibly be exploited her daughter, but we never get any understanding about why they wanted to expose her to so much publicity and controversy.

Because the film only superficially touches on some interesting issues and because Bar-Lev inserts himself so prominently, I can’t help but feel that the film is as exploitive of Marla as anything the parents do.