Mid90s is the directorial debut of Jonah Hill, and in a way, it feels like the culmination of everything he picked up working with filmmakers like Judd Apatow, Phil Lord & Chris Miller, and Martin Scorsese, among others. He’s beginning to take himself far more seriously as an artist, but not without losing his sense of humor. That still doesn’t necessarily prepare you for what he has in store with this film.
The film follows Stevie (Sunny Suljic), a 13 year old boy who lives in Los Angeles with his single mother, Dabney (Katherine Waterston), and abusive older brother, Ian (Lucas Hedges). One day, he stumbles into a group of older kids who hang at a local skate shop, and soon takes up skating as he befriends them.
That’s basically it. It’s not a plot-driven film by any means as much as it’s a slice-of-life type story that owes a lot to filmmakers like Richard Linklater and perhaps more so, Larry Clark. We see Stevie slowly become of the guys, we see how it changes the group dynamic, we follow their various misadventures through the city. The film keeps it very simple, which turns out to be its greatest asset as well as its greatest weakness.
On the positive end, the film is lovingly made. The film is shot by cinematographer, Christopher Blauvelt, in a 4:3 aspect ratio makes the proceedings more intimate and puts us closer to the characters. The film allows itself to linger, capturing moments that feel authentic. And it thankfully never becomes a series of references, keeping all the period details to the background, and not often dwelled upon. The melancholic score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross is unlike anything they’ve done before, and it fits the film beautifully.
However, Hill is very obviously not on the same level as the filmmakers he’s grabbing from here. Even compared to other slice-of-life movies, it doesn’t really build to a greater point aside from the obvious and basic “yeah, life can be hard, but it’s still worth it,” which isn’t bad, but it brings nothing new in the way it’s being said. And while the 84 minute runtime keeps things brisk, it is at the expense of building characters beyond the few bits of dialogue that’s supposed to inform everything about them, especially for the kids that Stevie ends up forming a special bond with. That bond is felt because of the performances, but there isn’t much substantial to it because we ultimately don’t know a lot about these people aside from what we’re told, and there’s no real surprise to how things turn out between them. There’s also an argument to be made that Hill, who comes from a wealthy family, paints poverty in strokes that are far too broad to create the nuance necessary to make it as real as it’s trying to be, which is probably why the characters aren’t as well defined.
But like I said, despise those flaws, the performances hold everything together. Everyone is solid, raw, and authentic. The group that Stevie befriends is made up by Na-kel Smith, Gio Galicia, Olan Prenatt, and Ryder McLaughlin; most of them are real skaters that Hill brought onto the film, and they’re very natural together. They capture that kind of scrappy camaraderie that I’ve seen in a number of groups growing up. Some of the drama that happens between them feel a bit typical for a film like this, but they’re good enough to sell it because everything about them feels lived in and real. It all works, almost despite the underdeveloped script. Even Waterston, who is always great in everything, manages to elevate an underwritten character.
It is also worth noting that Suljic is terrific. He has to hold the film on his shoulders, and he makes it work. There’s a number of wonderful touches, mostly early on, where you see him tap into that aspect of growing up, where you want to fit in with a group that is new to you, and you try to do everything you can to mimic them and look like them and act like them, anything to simply fit in. It’s endearing, it’s nostalgic, and it’s very relatable. I wish we were able to spend more time with him, so we could understand what drew him to that specific group, but it still works because he has a strong and likable presence.
I’m a bit mixed overall with Mid90s. I think Jonah Hill certainly has what it takes to be a good filmmaker, he has some solid impulses, especially in providing small moments that inform character like those sequences where Stevie tries to learn skating and fit in with the group. However, there’s just not much to this film. It’s not saying anything particularly profound or interesting, and while it remains a compelling enough snapshot of a very specific way of life in a very specific moment in time, it needed more of that specificity in its theming. Hill has potential, and while this is far from a home run, it’s the kind of debut that makes me curious to see what he does next.