Tale of the 4-year-old art prodigy - or was she?

Marla Olmstead's story played out in art circles and on CBS' "60 Minutes." She was a famous painter, celebrated for her vision, texture, complexity and use of color. Collectors salivated over her work.

She was "a natural" and an instant celebrity.

And she was all of 4 years old.

And darned if her "art" wasn't called into question, if her dad (a sometime painter) wasn't accused of doing her work for her. Darned if the whole house of painted cards didn't come tumbling down on her and her family, all before her 6th birthday.

And that's not the whole story.

"My Kid Could Paint That" is a documentary that brings to the fore questions of youth exploitation, celebrity culture, the "con game" that is modern art and media's role in the whole tangled mess.

Filmmaker Amir Bar-Lev followed the Olmsteads through their child's rise to fame and into the infamy that followed.

The story began in Binghamton, N.Y., when a local newspaper wrote up the precocious little blonde whose work was being hung by an attention-happy gallery owner. The New York Times picked up on it.

All of a sudden, everybody had to have "a Marla."

She was compared to Jackson Pollock. And from the very start, some folks recognized her arrival on "the scene" as the ultimate art-world irony. She was an artist to some, and proof positive to others that modern art is a fraud. If you can say, "My kid could paint that" about a piece of art, it can't be that accomplished or sophisticated.

"If a child can do it, it sort of pulls the veil off this con game," says New York Times art critic Michael Kimmelman, one of the voices of reason in this most thought-provoking of documentaries.

At times, "My Kid Could Paint That" plays like a mockumentary, a spoof of a shallow, trend-chasing pop culture gone mad for "the new" and "the young." At other times, Bar-Lev comes off as an intrusive leech, like "60 Minutes" and many others in this story, just another creep glomming onto a tale that could scar a child for life and wreck her family.

But we're curious. We want to know, and Bar-Lev is determined to get to the bottom of this. He knows that "60 Minutes" isn't the last word on "the true story." Is Marla "some lie foisted on the public," manipulated by assorted adults who either do the work for her or don't want to know that she's a fraud? Or, if she's doing the work, is it really worth all the fuss?

Fascinating, sobering questions for any parent wanting to think his or her child is "gifted," or anybody who frequents galleries and longs to be hip enough to see this year's model of the Emperor's New Clothes as "the next big thing."

And a rule to live by: If you can utter the film's title when you're considering buying a work of art, maybe you should let your kid paint it, and hang it on the fridge when they're done. *

Documentary produced and directed by Amir Bar-Lev, distributed by Sony Pictures Classics.