Mid90s (Review)
Like Its Tagline, Mid90s Falls but Gets Back Up Again.
Jonah Hill makes his directorial debut with the coming of age drama Mid90s. It’s a film that examines the rise of skating culture during the time period and the type of people who are attracted to it. Despite having a cast of relatively untested actors, Hill manages to pull some impressive performances from them to the point where it’s hard to like any of the little bastards. Then again, that’s kind of the point of this movie about broken kids doing their best to find some sort of control and belonging in a world they don’t understand.
At the center of Mid90s is Sunny Suljic who recently got his start in such films as The House with a Clock in its Walls and The Killing of a Sacred Deer. His role as Stevie though is a far cry from these though as it’s a much more visceral and emotional one. He plays a young boy with an abusive older brother (Lucas Hedges) and a mom (Katherine Waterston) who was far from prepared to put her life aside in order to raise two children. Living at the bottom of the pecking order in his home and little control over anything around him, he finds comfort when he runs across a group of skaters played by Na-kel Smith, Olan Prenatt, Gio Galicia, and Ryder McLaughlin. Unfortunately, the worst people to be raising a young boy like Stevie are the very people he finds himself surrounded by.
Growing up the closest I ever got to skater culture was Tony Hawks Pro Skater on PlayStation. So I’m sure that Mid90s didn’t speak to me as it might to a lot of others from my generation. That doesn’t mean that I don’t get the film though. As it goes on the audience gains subtle glimpses into the lives of the carefree skaters that Stevie encounters and it turns out no one has a perfect home life. From being too broke to afford even socks to the death of a sibling, nothing is “easy” for any of the kids in this group of hooligans. That’s why they love skating so much, it’s just them and a piece of wood that they have complete control over. When life knocks them down, it can be hard to get back up. However, when they fall off a skateboard they can get right back up again and keep going. In a way, it’s sort of like their therapy. The only problem is that their “therapist” doesn’t really have the credentials to really help them.
Hill adopts a slice of life approach to his storytelling in Mid90s. The minute we meet Stevie, he’s literally getting the shit kicked out of him by his older brother. From there we objectively follow the boy as he finds himself drawn into the cool kid’s circle. Hill though treats the camera as an observer, much like the old home skating videos that popped up during that time period. He even employes 16mm film to give his film a very “home movie” aesthetic which gives Mid90s a very 1990’s feel to it. This is continued in the casual use of racial slurs, homophobia and toxic masculinity which is no doubt a byproduct of the home lives many of the kids face. All in all, the film remains true to the time period it’s set in, but that doesn’t make it any easier to watch.
I have to give Hill props for his first time feature film directorial debut. He brings a lot to the table, but the storytelling used is not as strong as I might have expected. Mid90s is very much a character study and manages to create a few pretty intense moments thanks to them. However, it’s clear that Hill favors a few of his creations more than others, which is fine but keeps the film from truly being an ensemble tale. While it’s clear that Stevie is at the center of his story, his objective camera style makes the film feel more like it’s not focusing on any one characters, which creates a sort of conflict in the tale. Honestly, I can understand everything that he was going for, but the ingredients he uses don’t mix as well as he might have hoped for. The end result leaves Mid90s feeling unfinished and unpolished, which fits into the aesthetic he was aiming for but it’s one that is more than a little unsettling.
Like Eighth Grade, Mid90s leaves me a little shocked at the kind of stuff kids get up to when they’re left alone. In a way, it leaves me feeling like I was more than a little boring growing up. It also makes it hard to watch at certain points. Stevie is way too young to be getting involved in a lot of the stuff he gets up to in the film. The thing is that it’s hard to watch for a reason. These kids are pretty much abandoned to the streets. No one asks where they are or what they’re up to. Instead, they’re left to create their own ideal family of misfits. The question is if this new family really is that much better than the ones they’re trying to get away from.
