Mid90s review: Having starred in Netflix’s Maniac last year and recently said goodbye to Snoutlout and the How to Train your Dragon franchise with The Hidden World, Jonah Hill now heads behind the camera for A24’s slice of life piece Mid90s – which opened this year’s Glasgow Film Fest.
A24
In between Bradley Cooper’s A Star is Born, John Krasinski’s A Quiet Place, Ralph Fiennes’ The White Crow and now Hill’s Mid90s, a lot of actors have been jumping into the director’s seat of late. And hot on the heels of Skate Kitchen and Minding the Gap last year, skating is enjoying a bit hot streak at the centre of a lot of good films. Mid90s continues this, telling the story of young Stevie (Sunny Suljic) who takes a liking to skating and the respite it provides him from his abusive older brother (Lucas Hedges) and distant mother (Katherine Waterston). As the naïve Stevie tries to navigate this world, he falls in with a group of similarly lost youngsters – each with their own catchy nickname from “Fuck-Shit” (Olan Prenatt) to “Fourth Grade” (Ryder McLaughlin) and Ray (Na-kel Smith) – that help the young boy find his own voice in this tough world.
That’s essentially what Hill’s first venture into filmmaking boils down to: finding your voice. It’s a story about friendship, family and identity; you can clearly tell it comes from a place of passion, Hill reflecting on his own early adolescence here. But, for a film about cultivating your own voice in this world, it’s sad that this is sorely lacking in one. The thing is, this is tried-and-tested material. We’ve seen it all before (and, in fact, we’ve seen it done better in the already-mentioned Skate Kitchen) and Mid90s offers nothing exciting to spin the formula on its head. There’s clear effort permeating the writing and direction – the fetishisation of the ’90s through all the nods and call-backs to Hill’s childhood that he sprinkles into the production and set design is obvious – but it has all the makings of a directorial debut in that it lacks finesse. It’s very much a first endeavour, for better or worse.
However, when Mid90s flies, it soars. The comedic timing of certain scenes is impeccable; the performances – newcomer Suljic, especially – are exquisite. There’s such an authenticity to the chemistry and camaraderie between this cast that it’s easy to believe the relationships on-screen. There are scenes between these youngsters that are delightful, as we just sit and observe their friendship; the dynamic between Stevie and his older brother Ian, a terrific but criminally underused Hedges, is fascinating – albeit if the film only scratches the surface. There’s a lot of charm infused into the proceedings; however, every time it feels like the film is starting to succeed, it slips. There are drastic tonal and narrative choices that come out of nowhere and are then dismissed the next scene; the film doesn’t dig deep enough into the themes and ideas it alludes towards. And as charismatic as the cast are, the characterisation is one-dimensional – Stevie, aside, his peers are a stereotypical cohort of friends (the rebel; the dumb one; the wise mentor) and you’ll forget who’s who shortly after the credits roll. It’s perhaps a good summation of Mid90s as a whole: it has charm and style but it culminates with a whimper to leave something sadly very empty.
Mid90s review by Awais Irfan at the Glasgow Film Festival, February 2019.
