Mid90s
Jonah Hill becomes the latest Hollywood star to move behind the camera with Mid90s; a coming of age film centred on a 13-year-old boy who falls in with an LA skate gang, it's an impressive and stylish directorial debut
Jonah Hill’s directorial debut throws us into the SoCal skate culture of the 1990s, as told through the eyes of the pint-sized Stevie (Sunny Suljic) as he navigates the trials of early adolescence. Mid90s would make for a fitting double-bill with Crystal Moselle’s recent docudrama Skate Kitchen, the East Coast, female-focused counterpoint to Hill’s tale of male adolescence. While Moselle opted for something of a Cinéma Vérité aesthetic, Hill clearly prefers a flashier approach, taking cues from directors he’s recently worked with such as Gus Van Sant and Martin Scorsese.
Hill likes to linger on visual and aural artifacts of the past – a Ninja Turtles bed cover, Seal’s Kiss From a Rose, racks of videotapes and CDs. A similar cinema of nostalgia worked for Richard Linklater’s Boyhood. It may be a cheap trick, but done well – as it is here – it’s incredibly effective. This fetishisation of the 90s art direction isn't something to get hung up on, however. For Hill, this is just the setup; what he’s really interested in is the drama of adolescence, and authentically capturing 90s skate culture.
Stevie’s a tough cookie. He gets regular beatings from his unstable older brother, Ian (a tremendous Lucas Hedges), all the while is trying to release himself from the apron strings of his mother (Katherine Waterston). It’s not surprising that when opportunity knocks, he prefers to spend time with his new skater friends. There’s Fuck-Shit (Olan Prenatt) who, whenever impressed, yells “Fuck! Shit!”; Fourth Grade (Ryder McLaughlin), so named because he’s a bit dim; and Ray (a superb Na-kel Smith) who becomes Stevie’s mentor.
They sit in a skate shop, chatting the stupid chat that teenage boys do. Topics of discussion include whether black people get sunburnt (Ray howls with laughter at Fourth Grade’s ignorance) and arguing about whether it’s ‘gay’ to say thank you. There’s a raw authenticity to the dialogue, even if in 2019 it makes us squirm in our seats. Above all is the sense of loyalty between friends with a shared passion for skating, such as the scene when Ray lovingly sets up a new board for Stevie, now nicknamed Sunburn.
Hill’s made a time capsule of a film and infused it with real heart and passion. If this is his debut, it will be great to see what’s next.
Mid90s opens the Glasgow Film Festival on 20 Feb, and is released 12 Apr by Altitude