You raise some interesting observations, but the continued debate about the quality of the performances of the children strikes me as baffling, and not a little tedious.
These characters are not central to the story, though they figure importantly in the plot. (By which I mean, their plights are extremely off-topic, but their interactions are central to the 'mystery' being solved.) There is no easy way to treat such characters, since a naturalistic portrayal seems like a tangent, even despite important information being shared. Anyone who's seen Munich has experienced how rambling a story can feel when too many threads are tantalizingly glimpsed, but incompletely illuminated, in the tapestry. THIS film, by contrast, seeks to follow Guare's example from the play by treating the characters as objects of gentle ridicule. This is a strategy with some charm, as it gives each of the very minor characters an opportunity to shine, briefly, and renders them memorable despite brevity. The question I guess I'd raise in defense to anyone slamming their work is: "how else are we supposed to know they're more important that Flan and Ouisa's numerous 'audiences' to whom they tell their story?" It's a way of underlining the key components of the plot. Moreover, they're intended as comic relief. "SNL-like acting" may seem like a slam to you, as it emphasizes simplicity, but it also implies humor, which I think is the point. JJ Abrams' performance never fails to crack me up, precisely because it's so over-the-top. I'll also add that anyone who thinks it's somehow easy to ramp up that much in such a short amount of time cannot possibly have ever tried it.
Having said that: Anthony Michael Hall is dreadful. He doesn't seem to understand even the plot, let alone the society he's meant to be satirizing. When his character implies the contempt he feels for his social set, he barely suggests a history with them, let alone years of pent-up rage. His on-again-off-again fey mannerisms are also distracting, and a little insulting. Some gay men are effeminate, and some are not, and some even go back and forth depending on the topic of discussion and/or the company they're in: but we don't snap in and out of it depending on whether we remember it's part of our nature.
Regarding Will Smith, I'm not sure I agree with you that Paul is necessarily smart enough to understand his speech. I completely agree that parts of it are difficult to fathom, although I feel that some of that is inherent, as the character is grappling with some difficult-to-express ideas. For me, any such unintelligibility actually makes the speech seem more, rather than less, real. But Paul is above all else, a mimic. I can recite flurries of apparently perfect French that I do not understand, because I learned it by rote. He did the same.
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