This is almost one of those movies I could almost have reviewed perfectly well without even seeing it. As expected, it raises questions both about the exploitation of the young and of the questionable judgment of the modern art world.

It’s about a little girl, Marla, whose paintings somehow got to the level of success that most professional artists would be envious of. We meet the dealer who discovered her, looking scarily like a drunken fratboy who’s faced a lot of rejection in life simply stoked by the little girl’s popularity, who speaks of her within minutes of our meeting him in undeniably creepy terms: “Marla, when you see her, is a doll … both [her brother] and Marla could be Gap ads …”

We’re told that four-year-old Marla is “blissfully unaware” of the bally-hoo around her, but even as we hear those words, they’re juxtaposed with the image of her looking around one of her exhibitions confused at why so many people are calling her name.

A journalist involved at the start of the phenomenon says of the guy who ‘discovered’ her, “He framed it to me as a family human interest story.” Another guy talks about Pollock and other works selling for millions not perhaps because of the art itself but because of the story behind the art – which would completely explain the Marla thing, being as it is an interesting story, which explains the movie. It’s one of those issues that just triggers a chain reaction of questions when you ponder it, “the thin line between prodigy and freak,” “it must be art, look what people are paying for it!” “But why do they want it, hmm?” To the evil looking dealer guy’s credit, even he acknowledges this “value of marketing” in the process.

It doesn’t swing me anymore towards the whole outsider/modern art thing … and like, if anything could, you know what I’m gonna say, then it’s a beautiful 4 year old girl. There’s a montage of the paintings towards the end and to me, they just look like the same scribbles you hurry past in the Tate Modern – like, it amazes me how many people in the movie are seen to be demanding proof that little Marla painted them, like, seriously, is it that hard to believe when you look at them? Worst of all, in this montage, and later when we see the dad selling them, the things bear titles. Which is fine when the title is something like “Blue Sun”, but when you get to “Ode to Pollock” and “the triptych”, surely even the most open-minded pseudo-intellectual is gonna go, “Yah-huh? A four-year-old?” How the power of words can sometimes make me sick.

What can I say … it’s interesting, it’s 80 minutes, and a lot of it is a cute four-year-old girl scribbling in her underwear lol. You kind of know whether you’re gonna like/be interested in this kind of movie from the summary, a review is pretty pointless. Like I said, I could’ve pretty much written this without even watching it.