"Red Rocket" -- Movie Review

 

This week at The 59th New York FIlm Festival, I attended a screening of the new comedy-drama by Sean Baker, “Red Rocket”.   

Synopsis

When an ex-porn star returns to his hometown from Los Angeles, will he be able to adapt to his new surroundings -- and will the people there be able to adapt to him?

Story

Many years ago, Mikey (Simon Rex) left his small town home in the gulf area of Texas for the bright lights of Hollywood where he built a career as an adult film performer who worked under the name of Mikey Sabers.  Eventually, he aged out as newer, younger men entered the business and Mikey found jobs became fewer and further between.  Having spent all of the money he made as a performer on partying and living it up in the Los Angeles lifestyle, he must now return home to Texas City and somehow try to find a way to carve out a new life.  Unfortunately for Mikey, that’s easier said than done.

First, he returns to the home of his ex-wife Lexi (Bree Elrod) and begs her to allow him to crash there.  Her mother Lil is initially against the idea, but when he offers to pay a nominal amount to offset the costs, she consents.  Immediately, Mikey tries to find a job -- any job.  The problem is that he doesn’t have any marketable skills -- adding to that, when prospective employers learn that Mikey used to work in porn, they flat-out reject him.  Desperate, Mikey hunts down Leondria (Judy Hill), a local drug dealer.  Reluctantly, she agrees to hire him to sell weed around town -- after getting high on his own supply, he ultimately does start to make some money.

Eventually, Mikey meets a young woman whose nickname is Strawberry due to her bright red hair.  Strawberry, who’s weeks away from her 18th birthday, works as a cashier at a donut store.  After flirting with her for quite some time, she eventually agrees to go out on a date with Mikey.  Once they hook-up, Mikey is convinced that he’s discovered the next new porn star.  He decides to make her his protégé -- and his new meal ticket.  If he can convince Strawberry to move to Los Angeles with him, he will promise to make her a star in the adult film industry.  But when Lexi learns of Mikey’s plan to leave her again, will he still be able to make his dream come true?    

Review

One of the more interesting things about “Red Rocket” is that its protagonist is something of an antihero.  Mikey is narcissistic, ignorant of others’ pain and yet his personality is appealing and somewhat charming.  The fact that his quasi-sociopathic behavior is set against the backdrop of the 2016 presidential election is not a mere coincidence; any similarities between him and our former president are entirely intentional.  These deeply flawed characters are likely what Clinton was referring to when she characterized them as “The Deplorables” even though none of them seem to have any strong political convictions.      

If there is a criticism of “Red Rocket”, it would be the fact that its ending is something of a letdown.  There is a deliberate ambiguity here that’s annoying because the filmmakers want the audience to interpret it as they choose.  This is problematic because the social compact between the director and the audience is violated here; the director, as storyteller, is supposed to tell us a story with a beginning, middle and ending.  When the director does not give us an ending -- or the ending is unclear -- then the viewers will have an unsatisfactory experience with the movie.  Ultimately, the story is its ending and if we don’t know for certain what the ending is that can ruin the film, at least in part.    

Following the screening, there was a very brief interview with the director and some of the cast.  Director Sean Baker said that he wasn’t originally planning on making “Red Rocket” as his next movie -- however, due to Covid, he was forced to switch from his previously scheduled film to this one.  “Red Rocket” was something that was on the backburner -- a motion picture he intended to eventually make at some point down the road.  When his first choice got postponed in February of 2020, he took the next few months to regroup and eventually wound up shooting “Red Rocket” in September of 2020.  Baker said that he was fascinated by the idea of telling a story where the protagonist was what they refer to in the adult film industry as a “suitcase pimp”.