Mid90s is a coming of age comedy-drama film; the plot follows a young teenager as he starts hanging out with an older group of Skate Boarders.
Mid90s is the directional debut of funnyman Jonah Hill, of Superbad fame, and what a promising first outing this is. Mid90s manages to capture so excellently not just the ’90’s feel, but also the need to belong and, the need to find others like you and, be expected by them.
To this end, we see Stevie, (Sunny Suljic), a 13-year-old with an incredibly troubled home-life, a lot of things are implied but, nothing is out-rightly said, as he tries to befriend a group of skater boys that he admires. In service of this aim, we see Stevie do all kinds of things like smoke and drink underage, have sex underage, and do incredibly dangerous skateboarding tricks. A lot of these scenes are extremely uncomfortable to watch, the intimate scene especially made my skin crawl, but it is all done to be as realistic as possible. In many ways, this film reminded me a lot of the Larry Clarke 90’s film Kids, both showed the struggle of these kids who were poor and, disenfranchised by society; who just wanted a way out.
Another thing the film does well it show how appearances can be deceiving and, you never really know what is going on in a person’s head. It does this masterfully in the final act, throughout the film we learn very little about the skater boys that Stevie befriends this leads us to form our own opinions about them, then during a very touching conversation in the final moments of the film Ray, (Na-Kel Smith), the leader of the boys tells Stevie of the suffering each member of the gang has had to live with and, it really hits home the message of the film.
This is also shown by Lucas Hedges’ character Ian, Ian is Stevie’s older brother, throughout the film Ian is mean and unpleasant towards Stevie, in some ways he is almost the antagonist of the film. However, as the film progresses we learn bit by bit that Ian has had a very hard life and, is indeed very troubled; we also learn that deep down he does have a lot of care for his brother in the touching orange juice scene at the end.
The comedy of the film mostly lands, however, it is used incredibly sparingly and, this film is far more of a drama film than a straight comedy; you won’t come away from his laughing.
To conclude this is a very promising debut for Jonah Hill, he delivers an impactful slice of life, a more gritty coming of age tale, and, most of all he makes us question how we view people. In many ways despite a lot of it’s bleaker and, uncomfortable moments, Mid90s is truly beautiful.
4/5
Reviewed by Luke
Another Millennial Reviewer 