Direction: Sean Baker
Country: USA
Sean Baker has been a blessing to contemporary cinema, coming up with enthralling films such as Tangerine (2015) and The Florida Project (2017). In his new project - the dramedy Red Rocket - he keeps the provocative combination of social realism and recreational fiction, delivering a transgressive satire about the American male ego, which gains a special force with the performance of Simon Rex (a regular in the Scary Movie franchise). He is Mikey Saber, a washed-up porn star and manipulative bragger who returns to his small Texas hometown after years spent in L.A.
Homeless and penniless, he begs to his estranged wife, Lexi (Bree Elrod) and her cranky mother, Lil (Brenda Deiss), to stay with them, promising to help with the house chores and pay rent. To do so, and because the conservative local Texans don’t seem impressed with his CV and porn industry awards to hire him, he returns to the amateurish drug dealers with whom he worked in the past. Besides that, he starts hanging out with Lonnie (Ethan Darbone), a lonely neighbor, and lures a flirtatious 17-year-old girl, Raileigh (Suzanna Son), into one of his dirty schemes.
In a tragicomic way, Baker manages to inject sarcasm (Trump’s unlawful America lurks dangerously), discomfort (regarding Mikey’s opportunistic and predatory instincts) and amusement (there are a lot of funny incidents bringing conflict and tension together), taking good advantage from the environment itself and the largely non-professional cast to make it even more real. The acting styles are well-matched with the uninhibited direction.
With a few stark shots and coherent vision, Red Rocket finds disenchantment and hilarity in America.
