mid90s (2018)

Jonah Hill bares his past with his film debut Mid90s, about a kid named Stevie who comes of age in the mid 90s through skateboarding culture. A sobering look at boyhood in the 90s to now, that we may have forgotten in a direct way since the movie Kids. 

Mid90s is a bold debut for a comedic actor of mainstream acclaim, but is also a clear love letter to 90’s indie cinema of other bold directors such as Todd Solondz, in which the beginning of the film features a very Todd Solondz-esque silent awkward dinner scene, and the films direction is as grainy looking and confrontation as the 1995 film classic Kids from director Harmony Korine. Mid90s also plays like a silent movie at times with the accompanied Trent Reznor score, absorbing the atmosphere and following the wonder of it’s main protagonist Stevie.

Mid90s is a very accurate depiction of the skateboarding hip hop culture of the 90s, 2000s and now of tough rude confusing pact like behaviour, and the start of the Ritalin craze in the 90’s of parents trying to control their kids, and disaffected youth self harming to get by. But unlike Kids, which shows how horrific skate culture can be, Mid90s shows how redeeming and caring skateboard culture can be, in the midst of toxicity and subtly touching upon the cultural appropriation within the hip hop scene and skate scene amongst non-black people/teenagers using the N-word. With that the film shows where the toxicity comes from within music and the kids home lives.

 Jonah Hill perfectly shoots Mid90s as an old 90s independent film to the likes of Kids even with a cameo from Harmony Korine, and like Kids, accurately reminiscent of stark realistic truth telling yelling matches between family members that mark the temperature of their relationships. With scenes that feel extremely weird and quirky as directing choices but after the fact are affectively poignant and truth to life.

Na-kel Smith as Ray steals the show. Ray becomes the anchor of the group and to Stevie, the more Stevie starts to sink into the depravity of boyhood. 

Steven Suljic does an excellent job at playing a hopefully very polite sheltered 13-year old who transitions into pretending to be an angry resentful rude selfish teenager who is just trying to belong and have a place for himself but who comes back to his real life self when but into serious/ adult situations he never expected to confront in his young life. Stevie’s morals start to fray the more he tries to fit in with a group, who appear to be careless, and who only respect disrespectful disconnected attitudes, based on societies social interpretations of teenage hood. 

The satisfying part of Mid90s is every character gets their due to the point where it feels like it’s their movie each side character starts off like a caricature but through out the film become increasingly painfully real and full dimensional as points of the movie affect them just as much as it affects the lead character. The films plot targets everyone in Mid90s and therefore helps us take every character seriously, but Jonah Hill knows enough to know that in order for this world to feel realistic we don’t need closure to every conflict that’s opened between to characters or that’s brought up from a character, we just need to know it’s there and like life, we hope things work out.

The score by Trent Reznor is exactly what it needs to be and naturally depicts the translation from kid to teenager, along with the soundtrack of punk and 90s hip hop with bad brains misfits will tang and kiss from a rise from seal playing in a restaurant marking the timeline of 95-96 but not making it beholden to any timeline really even with constantly playing of Super NES. 

Negatives towards the film is the use of drugs and alcohol not being affecting enough on the lead child character’s mind during his first-time use, he never passes out or throws up once, but has never had a drink in his life, and at times the movie is pretty paint by numbers in its structure and intent. The film blatantly wants you to feel a certain thing in some scenes with certain lines and music together, but ultimately the film completely works making an affective point about friendship and unconditional love.

What’s amazing about mid90s is with all the vulgar behaviour of the teens and the serious realistic moments and points of the movie, Mid90s shows is how funny the kids naturally are and allows that to be the comedy of the film making mid90s an extremely funny film and reminding some of us of our hilarious high school middle school days skateboarding at the back of the school, too the point where you feel like you’re hanging out with these dudes in person while watching the film. One wonders if many of the scenes are improvised by these first-time teen actors, or if it’s just Jonah hills comedic chops and past experiences giving to the smooth comedic transitions of the film. 

Mid90s pays much respect to the lifestyle, business and craft of skateboarding very well without becoming a skateboarding movie. And connects skateboarding world’s roots to film making in a very personal way. Jonah hill very much captures the scoop of a generation born in the mid 80s and growing up in the mid 90s, a time without cellphones, a time with SNES, N64, some of the best hip hop, and a slack state of mind, just trying to belong and looking up to anyone who will show you something you’ve never seen or heard before. 9/10. 

-         Maurice Jones