Mid90's

Do ye remember those skateboard videos that were all the rage back in.....well in the mid 90's. Young fellas in baggy jeans racing around on their precious decks showing off their ollies and their kickflips. Well, trying to show them off but it was mostly them breaking their collarbones and wrists. They were everywhere and were the genesis of shows such as Jackass and Dirty Sanchez and film makers like Harmony Korine got their start making them. Mid90's is about the pain, both physical and emotional, behind the scenes of those videos and the young men who grew up way too quickly while making them.

Stevie's a lonely 13 year old boy living in Los Angeles with his brother Ian and his mother Dabney. He spends his time avoiding and taking beatings dished out by Ian so jumps at the chance of friendship with a group of older skater boys who hang out at the local skatestore. Ruben, Fourth Grade, Ray and Fuckshit soon become his best friends and skating becomes his life. The aimlessness and aggression of the lifestyle soon rubs off on him though and his family life starts to suffer.

Jonah Hill's directorial debut is an assured one. Like the boys portrayed it's clumsy and directionless in places but it feels genuine and is populated with characters who feel real and places that feel lived in. It's rare to see a depiction of teenage friendship this accurate too and a lot of it will strike pretty close to home for men who grew up with peer groups like this. The darker sides of male friendship aren't shied away from; the casual homophobia so rampant in teenager boys, the violence that can break out at any time. The constant need to impress and seek the approval of your peers even when you put your own personal safety at risk to do so. It will be (was) an uncomfortably autobiographical watch for some of us. I actually admire Hill for not sugarcoating any of it when it would be so easy to do so.

To fill the roles of Stevie's skater friends Hill chose unknowns. When any prolonged emoting is required of them things can get a bit cringy but they mostly do quite well especially Olan Prenett as the livewire Fuckshit. The kind of friend you are both in awe of and are kind of terrified of as you never know what they'll do next. Stevie himself is played by Sunny Suljic who does very well indeed as a boy forced into growing up way too fast. You'll want to hit him a kick at times but he's so small and baby faced next to his younger friends that mostly you'll just want him to be ok. His interactions with his mother Dabney (Katherine Waterson) lend a lot of heart to proceedings while one car set moment will have you watching from between your fingers . Award movie magnet Lucas Hedges does well too in an underwritten role as Ian. If there was one aspect of the film I'd have liked to see fleshed out it would have been his relationship with his family. He's too good of an actor to be pushed aside.

I have no doubt Hill devoured the work of Larry Clarke before he dived into this, especially his movies Kids and Ken Park (Harmony Korine who wrote both has a tiny cameo in this). They feel exactly like them, especially Kids who's aesthetic is copied to a tee, but thankfully this is minus the icky sexuality that turned both of those films into cause célèbre's. Hill is happy to let his story play out without needing to court controversy and it feels quite refreshing as a result. New filmmakers often go all out in an attempt to build attention for a first movie but here he's content to let the writing and the acting do the talking. 

This is a film that feels like it could have been made in the mid 1990's. The clothes, the hair, the excellent soundtrack, right down to it's shooting styles and film stocks used. It's 4:3 aspect ratio brings to mind the pre-digital camera days of the 90's too. The smaller screen lending the film an air of suffocation that mirrors Stevie's feelings as a teenage boy struggling to make his own way in a confusing world. As a debut feature it's pretty damn good. Can't wait to see what Hill can come up with next.