Kids (film) - Plot

Plot

Sixteen-year-old Telly and a twelve-year-old girl are making out. Telly convinces the girl, who is a virgin, to have sex with him. Afterwards, he meets his friend, Casper. Telly tells Casper about his sexual experience in graphic terms. They go inside a local store, and Casper shoplifts a bottle of malt liquor as Telly distracts the cashier. They then steal a peach, using the same set-up just outside the store from a sidewalk display. Looking for drugs and food, they head to their friend Paul's apartment, though they express dislike of him on the way there. They arrive at Paul's house, talk about sex and smoke marijuana while watching a skate video (Video Days) (Casper inhales nitrous oxide out of balloons, which Telly considers dangerous). The scene intercuts with a group of girls, among them Ruby and Jennie, talking about sex—each gender contradicting what the other gender says, especially about oral sex.

Ruby and Jennie mention that they were recently tested for STDs at Ruby's request, though Jennie only got tested to keep Ruby company. Ruby's test is negative, though she has had multiple sexual encounters, many of them unprotected. Jennie tests positive for HIV. She says she has had sex only once, with Telly. Jennie spends the rest of the film trying to find Telly, who has taken to only having sex with virgins. Telly and Casper walk to Telly's house and steal money from Telly's mother. They go to Washington Square Park and buy a "dime bag" of marijuana from a Rastafarian. They then meet up with a few friends, one of whom gives a blunt-rolling tutorial, to talk and smoke. After taunting a homosexual couple, Casper rides on a skateboard and carelessly bumps into a man, who furiously threatens him. He pushes Casper, but is struck in the back of the head with a skateboard by Harold, a friend of Telly and Casper's, causing him to collapse. A number of other skaters join in, beating, stomping, and hitting the man with their skateboards until he is unconscious.

While discussing whether or not they killed the man at the park, Telly and some of the group from the park pick up a 13-year-old girl named Darcy, the younger sister of an acquaintance, whom Telly wants to have sex with because she is a virgin. He convinces her to go with them to a pool. The other girls engage in pseudo-lesbian kissing and flirtation, but Darcy is restrained, though not shocked by the others' behavior. She notices a lesion on Telly's chest, but Telly dismisses it as a "third nipple." Telly and the group go to the house of another friend, Steven, to smoke, drink and talk about sex. Meanwhile, Jennie goes to a rave club called NASA trying to find Telly. She runs into "Fidget", who gives her a pill: which he refers to as "a euphoric blockbuster drug that is supposed to make 'special K' look weak". It turns out to be a depressant (a downer similar to Valium or xanax). She eventually finds out that Telly is at what has become a party at Steven's house.

Jennie arrives at the party to discover Telly having sex with Darcy, thus exposing her to HIV. Exhausted by her ordeal and with the drug still affecting her, Jennie passes out on a couch among the other sleeping party-goers. A drunken Casper proceeds to rape Jennie as she sleeps, unknowingly exposing himself to HIV as well. The film ends with a soliloquy by Telly about how without sex he would have nothing to live for, as well as a poignant look at several early-morning junkies in the streets of New York. The final scene features a naked Casper looking at the camera and saying "Jesus Christ, what happened?"