Red Rocket

Sean Baker really understands how to immerse an audience in the low rent existences of his filmic characters.  When you surrender to one of his grimy slices-of-life, it's as if you've become part of it, forgetting that you may be sitting in a comfortable, clean, and "nice" domicile.  Or in a darkened movie theater.  You're invested.  Likely also disgusted, but captivated nonetheless.  I became an instant admirer with THE FLORIDA PROJECT, a film that understands the hopelessness of destitution in the Sunshine State as well as anything I've seen.   In 2021's RED ROCKET, the latest variation on the "You Can't Go Home Again" theme, the director/co-writer (with Chris Bergoch) follows the ten cent lives of folks in Texas City, Texas, namely a former porn star who returns after nearly two decades in L.A. to the family and friends left behind.   Some new "friends" as well.

Mikey (Simon Rex) convinces his estranged wife Lexi (Bree Elrod) and mother-in-law Lil (Brenda Deiss) to let him back in their house until he can make his own way.  Things went south on the coast and even though Mikey is long in tooth about his downfall, we can pretty much figure it out what happened to him on our own.  He is a selfish opportunist, a true narcissist who uses everyone he meets.  At times, we really hate him, but yet he possesses an amiability that makes him difficult to cast off.  Those are the sort of characters I find the most interesting in fiction.  We kinda like them in spite of their toxic behavior.  Rex, previously best known as a rapper and veteran of a few SCARY MOVIE films, pulls off what I consider a skillful portrayal.  One part Bradley Cooper, another part Jason Bateman, yet with a sleazy charisma all his own.  That the actor actually began in his career in pornography is some sort of cosmic mimesis that wrote itself. 

Many viewers will be put off by the storyline involving a seventeen year old named Raylee (Suzanna Son) who likes to be called "Strawberry".  Mikey is smitten from the first time she waits on him at the donut shop.  Strawberry will quickly fall for his charms and lies, dumping her boyfriend and helping Mikey sell marijuana to the parade of road workers who frequent the shop.   Their relationship turns sexual, and Baker does not look away.  Was this a wise choice? There are perhaps reasonable artistic arguments on both sides, but with this subject matter and its neutral attitudes toward it, it's not hard to see why the Academy ignored this film, even though it was clearly one of the best of its year.  This opinion most certainly would not be shared by all those Millennials and Gen Zers so outraged by LICORICE PIZZA.  

I applaud Baker again for his fearlessness, his keen eye (and ear).  His films portray what is reality for many Americans.  While this is a smoothly directed and edited (by the director) feature, RED ROCKET always feels like cinema verite, as if we were eavesdropping on these downtrodden souls.  I read that one scene (Mikey gets the shit beat out of him by Strawberry's boyfriend and her parents in a parking lot) was so realistic during filming that passersby called the police.  And "downtrodden" is particularly apt for poor Lonnie (Ethan Darbone), who becomes friends with (and chauffeur for) Mikey.  A hopeless kid who wears military patches even though he never served - something that deeply offends Mikey, who simultaneously has no qualms about all of the deception he practices.   His promise to Lexi that he will "look out for Mikey" will get a tragic test late in the film.

My only real compliant is Baker's less than subtle political digs, which are repeated to the same level of  beat-you-over-the-head annoyance as in KILLING THEM SOFTLY.  Early on there is a shot of the bottom half of a "Make America Great" billboard, which would've sufficed. 

 

But RED ROCKET is also quite funny, especially in the face of otherwise potentially serious moments.  Note the film's climax.  Humor in the grotesque.  All of those genre pics that Mr. Baker loves (check his Letterboxd account) have clearly been influential.   And as in FLORIDA PROJECT, we arrive at a surreal final scene, one I felt was as perfect a closing as this film could've had.