The directorial debut of Hollywood star Jonah Hill is about skateboarders, the American street culture of the 1990s, and the difficulties of coming of age.
Los Angeles at night: two teenage skateboarders ride through the empty streets to a sad rock ballad by Morrissey. They are a thirteen-year-old Stevie (Sunny Suljic) and his older friend Ray (Na-Kel Smith). Stevie has a bruised face, a tendency for self-harming behavior, and strained family relationships. Ray has big ambitions and a desire to break out of his social bubble. Skating at night, their problems are forgotten and make way for an awkward friendship, a passion for skateboarding, and dreams of the future.
Outside of this special night, Stevie is an ordinary teenager: his mother doesn’t understand him, his classmates don’t want to be friends, his sullen older brother takes out his anger on him. Stevie looks at a group of older teenage skateboarders, of which Ray is the leader, with longing and admiration. Together with his new friends, he goes through the rites of passage into adulthood: the first cigarette, the first kiss and first sex, the first ride in a car without his parents.
Despite all the attributes of the bygone era — 1990s music and the grainy texture of the 16 mm square-frame film — the movie is far from nostalgic. Jonah Hill does not romanticize this risky, unsettled, and violent decade, the poor neighborhood or the hardships of adolescence. As a screenwriter and a now grown-up coeval of his protagonist, he fills this past with embarrassing and funny, but most of all bittersweet moments.
Mid90s
Director: Jonah Hill
USA, 2018. 85 min. 18+