Please Don’t Feed the Children review
If you like seeing children in peril…Tubi has a movie for you!
New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
Please Don’t Feed the Children
Directed by Destry Allyn Spielberg
Written by Paul Bertino
Starring Giancarlo Esposito, Mishelle Dockery, Zoe Colletti, Andrew Liner, Jesica Osbourne, Regan Aliyah and Vernon Davis
Please Don’t Feed the Children Review
Tubi Originals can often be quickly dismissed as a kind of film version of shovelware. Gamers will recognize the term to mean low-budget and low-quality. It’s not true for every Tubi Original, of course. Good movies can pop up anywhere. Lowlifes and Godless: The Eastfield Exorcism are examples of some very good films that debuted on the ad supported streamer. Unfortunately, you’re more likely to find some junk food watches like No Filter and Festival of the Dead. Please Don’t Feed the Children fits somewhere in between those two extremes.
Set in a world ravaged by a virus (how many more years will this be the starting point of so many stories?) that has wiped out a large portion of adults…Please Don’t Feed the Children is the story of children left in that world. The disease only wiped out about 1% of children…something that didn’t sit right with the leftover adult population. They herded the children into camps…our story focuses on some stragglers who have managed to escape/avoid capture.
The group needs to scavenge to survive. After an incident leaves a member of their troop wounded…they end up being discovered by a woman named Clara (Michelle Dockery). Clara seems nice…she patches up their wounded and serves them with hospitality. That is, of course, until they lose consciousness from the drugs she put into their drinks. The group wakes up locked in Clara’s attic…save for one girl who Clara treats very differently than the others. Mary (Zoe Colletti) is still locked up…but in a nice bedroom with clean clothes, dinners at the kitchen table, and allowances to join Clara outside. The group must find a way to escape and continue on their journey to a safe haven for children that all these stories have as part of their lore.
I’m going to cut to the chase here…Please Don’t Feed the Children is not a fun watch. It’s a well made movie with some strong performances. It takes place in a believable world that feels lived in by the characters trying to survive it. But man…it is devoid of smiles, laughs or happiness of any kind. Not all movies have to be upbeat…but the dire ones can always stand at least a little gallows humor. You won’t find that here. You will only find children in slow moving peril. In some ways, it’s reminiscent of the recent film Rita. That’s another story (based on a real one) about kids in long term peril. It’s also dark stuff. And it knew that some fantasy elements would help lighten the watch and keep hope afloat despite all signs pointing towards a depressing end.
Please Don’t Feed the Children skips the hope part. It doesn’t let us know enough about the characters to fully invest in them…but it also doesn’t allow us moments where we think things are going to end up alright. Aside from the mention of a safe haven out there somewhere…escape from Clara only means a life spent struggling to survive and evade capture anyway. The movie paints the bleakest of pictures for all involved. Well made…but an often dire watch. The cast is uniformly strong. Dockery is terrific as the unsettled Clara, grieving the loss of her child. She attempts to convert Mary into her new daughter…which is the most interesting aspect of Please Don’t Feed the Children.
This certainly isn’t a bad movie. Especially for a feature directorial debut. Please Don’t Feed the Children was directed by Destry Allyn Spielberg, the daughter of that guy who made Jaws 50 years ago. Most discussion about the film has tended to center around this piece of pop culture trivia…but I don’t find it that interesting, to be honest. Unless there’s some strange parallel to be drawn between Steven’s early work showing the scars of being a child of divorce and Destry’s debut being about parentless children being tortured by society…then I would want to start this whole review over.
There isn’t, of course. Which makes her name being attached to this movie no more interesting than any other director’s debut in my view. The job being done is what matters…and Spielberg acquits herself nicely. She draws strong performances, builds a real world for them to live in…and shoots a confident picture. It’s bleak…but it is fully committed to that vision. That’s a solid debut by any name.
And a solid Tubi Original for those who don’t mind spending an hour and half searching for a hint of joy that isn’t going to arrive.
Scare Value
Please Don’t Feed the Children is a bleak movie. It opens bleak and then it gets bleaker. Spielberg gets strong performances out of the cast and creates a world that feels lived in. And bleak. Can’t forget bleak. I don’t quite know what would draw someone to this material. Kids in peril isn’t my favorite subgenre…but I don’t mind it if it’s well done. Please Don’t Feed the Children is pretty well done. And very bleak.
2.5/5
Please Don’t Feed the Children Link
Streaming on Tubi
