+ Best LGBT Movie of the Year + Best Youth Movie of the Year
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| A deliciously manipulated, great poster for Eliza Hittman's Beach Rats |
We follow teenager Frankie for a summer, in which he experiences a loss in the near family, does drugs and tries to navigate the expectations he perceives from his male friends with his own conflicting desire to be intimate with older men.
Four pulsating, large hearts go out to this intimate, impressively crafted portrayal of some of the difficulties of youth specific to being a young gay man. It is the second feature by writer-director Eliza Hittman (It Felt Like Love (2013)).
Beach Rats has a subtle but infectious humor but still takes its protagonist's struggle and journey dead serious. Harris Dickinson (The Medium (2016)) is fearless and phenomenal in the lead, and you never guess for a second that he is actually British. The film is fixed in a Brooklyn environment close to an amusement park and the beach, an evocative and somewhat nightmarish setting for the punches of youth, and Dickinson and his fellow cast members all ring absolutely true. In fact nothing in Beach Rats breaches the confines of complete realism, although some audiences will be more acknowledging than others of this, naturally.
Beach Rats is a sensitive story, which made me thank heaven that I am not myself a teenager anymore. Nicholas Leone's electronic score is used skillfully to underpin the emotions of our protagonist, and Hélène Louvart's (Dark Night (2016)) 16 mm cinematography distinguishes the film aesthetically and always serves the narrative commendably. Beach Rats is sensorily oriented and thankfully doesn't shy away from the corporeal focus of the story's center, but its probing of sexuality and bodies remains tasteful, which is also highly commendable.
SPOILER The ending doesn't reach an ending of the journey for Frankie, - in fact it leaves him at a very vulnerable and unsure point, - and I wouldn't have minded it giving us just a hint at some possibly hopeful future for him.
Beach Rats may make you think of Barry Jenkins' great Moonlight (2016) and David Gordon Green's masterpiece George Washington (2000). I am already looking forward to revisiting it someday, and to see the next works by Hittman and whatever the very talented Dickinson will next grace us with.
Related posts:
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Moonlight (2016) - Jenkins and McCraney's powerful and personal coming-of-age romance drama
Dickinson gives a so-called selfie interview for Verge in this video
Cost: Unknown
Box office: 457k $ and counting
= Unknown
[Beach Rats premiered 23 January (Sundance Film Festival) and runs 95 minutes. Hittman won the Dramatic Directing Award at Sundance for the film and is working on her next feature now. Beach Rats is certified fresh at 82 % with a 7.1/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of Beach Rats?
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