The film follows Stevie, played by Sunny Suljic (a young actor I only remember from "Killing of a Sacred Deer"), a young boy who lives with his punk brother and their single mother. Where their house is in disarray, Stevie finds solace in joining ranks with a handful of skaters who hang out downtown and base out of a small board shop. They have nicknames like "Fuckshit" and "Fourth Grade" and quickly dub Stevie "Sunburn." Who knows if Stevie loves the concept of skating, but we do see how clearly he wants to be included in something... Anything. He practices on a used board in his backyard, sneaks over fences to ride on school playgrounds, and live out a carefree summer the way you might expect kids to do.
Stevie's older brother, Ian, is played by an unrecognizable Lucas Hedges (who dyes his hair brown and has packed on some muscles to become more intimidating). From the first scene we see they do not get along. Later in the film we might come to see Ian with new light. Where at first Ian is a punk who we see as a nuisance, by the end he is transformed into a person with real insight and real protection for his brother. From "Boy Erased" to the less-than-stellar "Ben Is Back," Hedges has really carved himself into 2018, and maybe this small performance is nonetheless his highpoint.
I loved this movie in the way it shows Stevie utterly washed over in this new world the way a movie like "Almost Famous" dropped William Miller into a world of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. We see Suljic smile and smile, and with each new scene I couldn't help but smile along with him. Is there much plot? No, but I love the way Jonah Hill'c camera remains so still and these boys move in and out of frame. I love how one moment filled me with nostalgia and the next had me brimming with anxiety, especially considering I was neither a skateboarder or much of a "rebel" as a kid. Even the film mimics the style of some grunge film made on a budget, with a tight "square" format and film complete with imperfections and scratches. This isn't a groundbreaking directing/writing debut, but Hill shows he's more than worthy of branching out in the world of film. First as an actor and now as a storyteller, I am continually amazed at the skill of Jonah Hill.
The film concludes on such a miserable note that I felt compelled to deduct from its final score. For a movie so free-flowing, there's a climax that hits like a brick and then kind of ends. We as an audience (at least myself personally) feel so cheated that Stevie and his mother don't have one more scene, or that Ian is left mostly unexplained as a fully-realized character. This movie shows us the serious consequences of hanging with the wrong crowd at an early age, but in the end I wonder if Jonah Hill only wanted to end with "well that's all, folks." The story concludes with a page out of the movie "Rent" which I shudder even saying out loud, with a group of friends, a tv, and some home videos. What happens next? I understand that sometimes questions are left up to the viewer, but with so much at stake it almost makes the film feel incomplete. I just wanted more. Well, maybe that's a sign that it did something right...
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