Beach Rats
Original post date: 16 January 2019
Rating: ✭✭✭✰
This movie should be a whole lot more depressing than it is. A little bit reminiscent of Larry Clark’s movies, it follows young Frankie as he wastes away a hot summer in Brooklyn with his equally aimless mates. Written and directed by Eliza Hittman, it is nicely understated with a minimum of dialog, especially from Frankie and his pals who, being young posturing males, tend to express themselves in knowing grunts and the usual proto-macho utterings. With no job—it is not clear whether he is on a break from school or out of school completely—Frankie clearly has little for doing. He battles his boredom—and escapes the bleakness borne of his father’s slow, miserable death at home from cancer—by exploring online sex sites and using drugs. Given the lad’s interest in gay sex, we are primed to expect a coming-out story, but that is not what Hittman has in mind. Instead, we watch as the conflicting strands in Frankie’s life slowly converge and clash, leaving him more desultory than ever. What keeps us involved, though, are a few bright spots, mainly female. They include Madeline Weinstein as Simone, the young woman who fancies him and sees something beyond his self-involvement; Kate Hodge as his concerned but overwhelmed mom Donna; and Nicole Flyus as his all-too-ready-to-blossom little sister Carla. There are many nice, low-key touches. Like the way Donna desperately keeps dialling her own phone number to hear her dead husband’s voice on the answering machine, or the way quiet Jesse (Anton Selyaninov) stares or shrinks or retreats when his friends veer into bad behavior. He is one of those characters that leave you wanting to know more about him. The main shining point, however, is Harris Dickinson, the English actor now best known for playing J. Paul Getty III in Danny Boyle’s TV series Trust, as Frankie. The camera loves his wan, angelic beauty, no matter how bad his behavior gets. Would the movie work as well with a central performance from a less photogenic actor? Maybe not. In the end, though, it is Dickinson’s performance that draws us in, but the fact that he is easy on the eyes certainly does not hurt. More to the point, Hittman succeeds in immersing us in a world that feels completely and authentically (and sadly) real.
Rating: ✭✭✭✰
This movie should be a whole lot more depressing than it is. A little bit reminiscent of Larry Clark’s movies, it follows young Frankie as he wastes away a hot summer in Brooklyn with his equally aimless mates. Written and directed by Eliza Hittman, it is nicely understated with a minimum of dialog, especially from Frankie and his pals who, being young posturing males, tend to express themselves in knowing grunts and the usual proto-macho utterings. With no job—it is not clear whether he is on a break from school or out of school completely—Frankie clearly has little for doing. He battles his boredom—and escapes the bleakness borne of his father’s slow, miserable death at home from cancer—by exploring online sex sites and using drugs. Given the lad’s interest in gay sex, we are primed to expect a coming-out story, but that is not what Hittman has in mind. Instead, we watch as the conflicting strands in Frankie’s life slowly converge and clash, leaving him more desultory than ever. What keeps us involved, though, are a few bright spots, mainly female. They include Madeline Weinstein as Simone, the young woman who fancies him and sees something beyond his self-involvement; Kate Hodge as his concerned but overwhelmed mom Donna; and Nicole Flyus as his all-too-ready-to-blossom little sister Carla. There are many nice, low-key touches. Like the way Donna desperately keeps dialling her own phone number to hear her dead husband’s voice on the answering machine, or the way quiet Jesse (Anton Selyaninov) stares or shrinks or retreats when his friends veer into bad behavior. He is one of those characters that leave you wanting to know more about him. The main shining point, however, is Harris Dickinson, the English actor now best known for playing J. Paul Getty III in Danny Boyle’s TV series Trust, as Frankie. The camera loves his wan, angelic beauty, no matter how bad his behavior gets. Would the movie work as well with a central performance from a less photogenic actor? Maybe not. In the end, though, it is Dickinson’s performance that draws us in, but the fact that he is easy on the eyes certainly does not hurt. More to the point, Hittman succeeds in immersing us in a world that feels completely and authentically (and sadly) real.
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