Jonah Hill's novice directing is a winner out of the gate. LA in the 90's never looked so good.
mid90’s
Grade: A-
Director: Jonah Hill
Screenplay: Hill
Cast: Sunny Suljic (Killing of a Sacred Deer), Katherine Waterston (Alien Covenant)
Rating: R
Runtime: 1 hr 25 min
By: John DeSando
When Jonah Hill played the bright and nerdy stats guy opposite Brad Pitt in Moneyball, he was far more than the sclubby second banana that started his career. His mid90s, as writer/director, is one of the best coming of age story in recent memory.
Stevie (Sonny Suljic) is a teen whose abusive home life drives him in the mid 90’s to the streets of LA into the friendship of older eccentric skateboarders who introduce him to a liberated life, whose conversation is free association and whose experiences can, among many adventures, lead this young teen to make out with an older girl, more an emblem of coming of age than sensuality.
This romantic young teen drama relies on discursive moments that don’t seem to form a story line. Yet they do in ways we remember growing up, small moments that loom large in middle-aged memories. When the young Stevie (or Sunburn as his new buds like to call him), is asked by his new friends to fill a water jug, he is luminous with joy to be accepted even if in a go-fer moment.
The character arc will develop to where he can skateboard with courage, and his friends lovingly wait by his hospital bedside as he recovers from an auto accident. Hill keeps the innocence factor prominent while he incrementally exposes the growing ties between Stevie and new friends like “Fuckshit” (Olan Orenatt) and “Fourth Grade” (Ryder McLaughlin), strange but believably affectionate lower-class friends of Stevie.
Even though the coming-of-age motif has been overplayed in recent years, even in Disney productions, Hill has made sure not to devolve his story into cliché. Mid90’s has an authentic feel and look to make you want to hear again “Dedicated to the One I Love” played over the tender growing up of a loveable and authentic kid of the mid90’s.
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts WCBE’s It’s Movie Time and co-hosts Cinema Classics. Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.rr.com
