An incredibly well written script that knocks down everything it sets up, The Kid Detective is a wonderfully subtle black humor that features the identity crisis of a grown man who wants nothing more than to prove to himself that he is the great detective he once believed himself to be. If you have not yet seen the film, I highly recommend that you go do that and come back to this later to avoid spoilers.
I have seen several accounts of viewers who were left a little confused by the last shot of the film, so for those of you who were left scratching your heads at this shot, this is for you, because everyone deserves to understand and fully appreciate the weight of it.
To refresh your memory, this shot sees Abe’s parent’s visit after he solves his first murder case. We then see them marvel at how clean his apartment is and how well put together Abe looks. They sit down and sing Abe’s praises as they transition into asking him if it’s okay with Abe that they had already accepted spots on interviews regarding Abe himself. Abe agrees that this is acceptable in a lifeless voice, and then begins to break down in tears as we roll the credits to a very ill-fitting Sugar Town.
Why, you ask, is Abe so down when he just solved a decades old mystery, restored his reputation as a respectable detective, and the town is bright and happy again, just as he wanted? Well...for several reasons, really.
To begin with the very scene in question itself, his parents can’t give Abe the support he needs. They never could, and they can’t even respect him enough as a grown man of his own right to apologize for not believing in him, or giving him the support he needed before. No, instead they pretend they were the backbone of his success, accepting credit for it via interviews as if they are entitled to it. They can’t even see that their son, who was previously acting on very self destructive behavior, is now alone and depressed, stricken with insomnia because “the floors creak at night”.
Take a moment to put yourself in Abe’s shoes. As a child who was praised for his potential in detective work, his very own secretary and friend, Gracie, was kidnapped. Her father, the mayor, committed suicide out of the distress of losing his daughter, the children of the town were counting on him to find her, and the adults never really took him seriously enough to believe he could...he was just a child with a wild imagination, after all. Now Abe sees how the town really views him, and he spirals into an identity crisis as two decades pass since the disappearance of Gracie, and the whole time she was just in some shed he could have easily walked up to. He HAD all of the evidence he needed to find the culprit, but he didn’t have the support.
Now the town is upbeat and happy again, but not a single person apologizes or even recognizes the fact that they didn’t give Abe the trust he deserved. They’re just happy to put a pretty little bow on an issue that has plagued the town for so long and they’re ready to forget it all and move on, no lesson learned. But Gracie doesn’t get to move on. She has mentally regressed in age, and even if she is able to get some handle on her mental health at some point way down the line, she will always live with this trauma.
It's like Abe said, “No matter how simple a case may seem, it’s always shocking what you find”. Abe can believe in himself again, but can he believe in the town? Is it even worth being his best self for a town that still can’t respect him enough to learn from this traumatic experience? Abe got what he wanted, sure, but nothing really changed, and he can and likely will be forgotten again just as easily as he was the first time. So this is why Abe cried at the end, and this is why the ending was so funny. The sheer contrast between what Abe wanted and the reality of what Abe got is so jarring, and so relatable, so real, one can’t help but laugh to relieve the pressure.
Comments