Growing pains have rarely felt so thoughtful
Novice director and his young cast have found just the right balance of bleakness and humour
Mid90s
Grade: B Theatres, showtimes, pages 30-31
Jonah Hill’s debut behind the camera is confident, nonchalant and thoughtful. Mid90s vividly reimagines the cultural touchstones of its time and astutely acknowledges the growing pains of a male prepubescent who just wants to be “cool.” Though the film doesn’t appear to be autobiographical, Hill is precisely the right-aged Millennial to be making movies set in that halfway point between the fall of the Berlin Wall and Y2K. For many older Millennials who were just beginning to understand the world around them in the mid-nineties, subcultures like hip-hop, grunge, skateboarding and others were trendy little identities we could try on for size.
That demographic will find a twinge of nostalgic identification with Stevie (Sunny Suljic), a quiet, observant, mophaired middle-schooler with the kind of dire home environment that encourages escape plans. Steve’s got a negligent mother (Katherine Waterston), a physically abusive older brother (Lucas Hedges) and zero father figures,
so when Stevie finds a hip older crew who hang out at a skateboard shop, the ragamuffin doesn’t foresee any negative consequences.
Some of these dudes think they’re too cool for real names. One nickname (that’s slightly too obscene for a family
friendly publication) is given to a biracial wisecracking goof (Olan Prenatt) with long blond curls. His best friend/straight man is Ray (Na-Kel Smith), who comes closest to being the leader of the crew. He’s the only one with serious ambitions to
leave behind their poverty-stricken life. Fourth Grade (Ryder McLaughlin), so dubbed for his low IQ, is meekly content to document the boys’ skateboarding tricks with a clunky camcorder.
These teens drive, smoke, drink and (allegedly) have sex.
The only things they seem to care about is pulling off the coolest moves on their boards and cracking the funniest jokes. The riffraff’s riffing is reminiscent of the malebuddy ripostes from Hill-starring films made by Judd Apatow (Knocked Up and Superbad).
But, dare I say, the comedy in Mid90s is better. Hill gets his talented young stars to find their own ways to improvise naturally funny banter.
There’s one last crew member: the youngest of the bunch, Ruben (Gio Galicia), whom Stevie first befriends, but as time goes on, becomes a detriment to his status within the group dynamic. Ruben tells Stevie not to say “thank you” because “people will think you’re gay.” When Stevie runs this insightful life advice past one of the older teens — who laughs at anyone who would be stupid enough to not have good manners — the light dawns in Stevie’s eyes that not everything everyone says is worth believing.
Stevie’s negligent upbringing is sad but endearing. When his brother isn’t pummelling him, Stevie sneaks into his bedroom to admire his sibling’s meticulously cultivated shrine to hip hop and makes notes from the stacks of CDs and Source magazines.
Though Hill has taken cues from classic child-poverty films — most notably Kids — Mid90s doesn’t have the same gravitas to paint a full picture of its impoverished setting. But Hill does manage to find a balance between his movie’s severe subject matter and the humour that helps teens like Stevie survive their lonely, malnourished adolescence — hopefully all in one piece.