Rated: MA15+
Directed by: Sean Baker
Screenplay Written by: Sean Baker, Chris Bergoch
Produced by: Sean Baker, Shih-Chihg Tsou, Alex Saks
Starring: Simon Rex, Bree Elrod, Suzanna Son, Shih-Ching Tsou, Parker Bigham, Brenda Deiss, Ethan Darbone, Brittany Rodriguez, Judy Hill, Marion Lambert.
‘Why are you here?’
Bruised and sleeping on a bus, Mikey Saber (Simon Rex) is back in Texas.
He fronts up at his ex’s mum’s house – ‘What are you doing here?’ asks Lexi (Bree Elrod). Because she knows Mikey way too well.
But Mikey knows which buttons to press. He’s a fast talking, ex-porn star who’s ‘been blessed’ with a decent package and good looks. And no moral compass.
He’ll say and do anything to survive.
He’ll f*#k his ex-wife just to sleep in a bed, deal pot to make money. And seduce a seventeen-year-old girl because she’s smoke’n hot.
Meet, Strawberry (Suzanna Son). Sweet and not-so-innocent, she’s a young girl who ‘likes men not boys.’
She doesn’t stand a chance. Because Mikey has decided he likes her. He’s going to make her famous.
‘What did the donuts do on their first date?’ Mikey asks Strawberry – she works at a donut shop.
‘They glazed into each other’s eyes,’ he smiles.
I could kinda get behind this guy down-on-his-luck. But when he starts to charm this young girl, I started to cringe.
There’s a glib lightness to the film but underneath there’s a dark reality.
‘Your mother hates me.’
‘She hated you. She died,’ says Lonnie (Ethan Darbone). He’s the nextdoor neighbour.
It’s a sad place, with smoke stacks of oil refineries blowing pollution into the air virtually in the backyard. The emergency test announcement can be heard in the bedroom.
It’s like this chancer brings light into the lives of these people because they have so little and he’s so nice and polite. They don’t see what’s happening at first because he lifts them up, shines a light. Until suddenly they see how much he takes. When it’s too late.
I didn’t find the film funny or light. Like Mikey, there’s a dark layer underneath shown in a-day-in-a-life style of filming that’s really about prostitution, drugs, sickness, poverty, betrayal, fake valour, selfishness and complete blindness and lack of empathy.
Not that Red Rocket is a badly made film. The casting is brilliant. But it was like it was up to the audience to decide how things were going to work out, depending if you’re an optimist, meaning, Strawberry will be OK. She’ll be discovered as a musician. Someone aside from Mikey will see her worth. Or not, only the worst is to come. And I lean towards the cynical these days making me see only bad things to then realise how dangerous and blind this character Mikey is as he continues to politely destroy.
It was disconcerting because the film is from the point of view of Mikey. So I could see what he’s doing is wrong but he can’t see the damage, so I got angry at this douche bag and wanted to yell and kick him in the guts. He turned up
He turned up with bruises and you get to know why, well pretty much straight away.
I get the layers of the film, but it annoyed me and in the end, I was left feeling angry.