Review: Pier Kids

Pier Kids, the latest doc from Elegance Bratton (executive producer and creator of Viceland’s My House) captures both the struggles and the joys of three queer and trans youth who make their home on NYC’s Christopher Street Pier. Currently in production on his upcoming narrative feature The Inspection, an autobiographical story starring Jeremy Pope and Gabrielle Union, the director himself spent a decade living on the streets before finding filmmaking while serving as a US Marine. (Bratton then went on to earn degrees from NYC’s notorious gentrifying institutions Columbia and NYU.) In other words, Pier Kids, which made its US broadcast debut on August 2nd on PBS’s POV, paints a loving and respectful insider’s portrait; while also managing to be a cinematic clarion call urging us to bear witness to the unhoused hiding in plain sight. (Except of course when they’re being heavily policed. And ironically in this case, in the West Village and on its waterfront – historically safe spaces for LGBTQ+ youth ever since the Stonewall Uprising supposedly put an end to such injustice.)

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