“Mid90s”– Movie Review

This weekend at The 56th New York Film Festival, I attended a screening of the new comedy-drama, “Mid90s”, written and directed by Jonah Hill.

Synopsis

When an adolescent boy takes up with a group of skateboarders to escape from his awful home life, will this decision impact his life for the better or for the worse?

Story

In the Los Angeles of the mid-1990’s, Stevie (Sunny Suljic) is merely trying to survive being 13 years old.  He and his older brother Ian (Lucas Hedges) are being raised by their single mother Dabney (Katherine Waterston), who might be more concerned with hooking-up with complete strangers than caring for her two sons.  Despite living with an older brother and a mother, Stevie feels all alone in the world – or maybe, it’s because of his brother and his mother that he feels all alone.  The boy’s life changes when he sees a bunch of teenagers skateboarding in the streets.

These boys are only slightly older than Stevie, but the way they risk danger in the manner in which they conduct themselves makes them seem as fearless as Stevie himself wishes he was.  Eventually, Stevie musters the courage to introduce himself to these boys and is suddenly oriented to a world he never imagined existed.  Initially making contact with Ruben (Gio Galicia), he is quickly befriended by the older and much wiser Ray (Na-kel Smith), who takes Stevie under his wing and gives him the nickname “Sunburn”, which is how everyone comes to know him. 

After much trial and error, Stevie improves his skateboarding skills, but is still nowhere the level of expertise as his new friends.  As much of a feeling of belonging as these boys give to Stevie, he learns just as much about making bad life choices.  He winds up drinking and doing illicit drugs whenever they are offered; clearly, Stevie is in over his head, but he just doesn’t know how much of a wrong path he’s going.  Instead of being the recipient of beatings, he’s now administering them.  When Stevie gets into a car with a friend who’s had too much to drink, will he survive or will this be the last chance he ever takes?        

Review

Perhaps the best cultural touchstone that will determine whether or not you’ll like “Mid90s” would be the band Nirvana:  if you were older than Kurt Cobain when this group hit bit, then “Mid90s” is probably not for you. On the other hand, if you were still an adolescent at that time, then you will totally grok this picture. “Mid90s” is definitely a generational type of movie – in other words, the degree of appreciation you will have for “mid90s” will entirely depend on how old you are.  The younger, the better. Older audiences will have difficulty relating to much of this, which is where a considerable amount of the emotional impact relies. Since this film is largely centered on  hip-hop and rap from the musical side and the lifestyle of skateboarding, the younger audiences will have a significantly easier time relating to this story as opposed to the AARP-eligible set.

Parts of “Mid90s” suggest that Jonah Hill has some possibilities as a filmic storyteller, but needs to sharpen certain skills.  One example where he succeeds is at the beginning of the movie: we see Stevie get viciously beaten by his older (and much bigger) brother; this immediately makes you sympathetic to Stevie and identify his brother as this film’s antagonist.  We know who is the good guy and who is the bad guy and we will keep that for the remainder of the motion picture. Where Hill seems to falter is in terms of making us understand why some of these characters are the way they are and do the things they do.  Why does Stevie physically torture himself when his brother isn’t beating him?

Afterwards, there was an interview with Hill and much of the cast of “Mid90s”.  Hill said that from beginning to end, it took him about four years to write the script; after that, it underwent something like 20 drafts.  He shot the film largely in Super 16 because he wanted the bland quality, where Los Angeles was drained of color.  Often, he said, when the city is shot, it comes across on screen as looking overly bright.  The character of Fourth Grade was shooting the group’s escapades in Hi8; originally, Hill planned to intercut his Super 16 with the Hi8, but ultimately decided against doing so for fear that it may be too distracting.