I enjoyed this slice-of-working-class-California-life in the 90s from Jonah Hill. It’s a coming of age story about 13 year-old Stevie (Sunny Suljic), from a single-parent home, who joins a gang of local older boys and seeks acceptance from them.

The boys indulge in laddish conversations about girls and are obsessed with skateboarding. They take drugs and get drunk a lot. Stevie joins them as the youngest of the group, and soon finds favour by saying stupid stuff and taking dangerous risks with his life. He gets the nickname ‘Sunburn’, much to the chagrin of the former baby of the group, setting off an envy storyline.

Seeking the other boys’ approval Stevie turns from a nice, polite child to smoking and drinking and stealing money from his mum. But he never goes entirely bad, and he self-punishes regularly (once with a wire).

The characters are all almost sweet. The eldest gang member (Na-kel Smith) wants to escape the hood and is the wisest one of them. He reveals to Stevie, and the audience, the troubled home lives of each of the boys, and at one point he tells Stevie that he doesn’t need to take so many blows from life.

None of the gang members are intimidating, ‘Fuckshit’ (Olan Prenatt) looks to the bottom of a bottle for fun, and ‘4th Grade’ (Ryder McLaughlin) – whose family is so poor they can’t even afford socks – has a camera and wants to be a film-maker. He shoots everything the group does, and we see the result.

Mid90s doesn’t ask many questions but it has a soft reminiscent mood even for people who weren’t anywhere near California in the 90s, and the music is great.

Director: Jonah Hill
Writer: Jonah Hill
Stars: Sunny Suljic, Katherine Waterston, Lucas Hedges

 

Ailie Hunter
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