Red Rocket

Sean Baker's Red Rocket, a comedy of sorts, is his richest tapestry of American underclass life thus far. Simon Rex plays Mikey, an actor in adult films who moves back to his hometown of Texas City after his career in L.A. reaches a dead end. Mikey, hat in hand, moves in with his estranged wife and her mother. The broke palooka rides around his oil refinery town on a child's bicycle. He looks up former acquaintances and ends up working as a low level pot dealer. To top things off, he romances a 17 year old (Suzanna Son) who  work in a doughnut shop.

The film is a showcase for Mr. Rex and it is his charisma that enlivens this tale of an aging narcissist. As creepy as Mikey's "courtship" of the teenaged, all too knowingly nicknamed "Strawberry" is, we can appreciate her attraction. Mr. Rex, whose checkered filmography includes some adult film work, exudes a boyish wonder that brightens up this dour portrait of Gulf Coast proles. Baker seizes upon Rex's dumb beauty and Rex is game, appearing in various states of undress throughout the movie. When Mikey runs through town in the buff to escape his latest batch of trouble, it seems fully in character. Mikey's nakedness is indicative of his living below the poverty line, but also his childishness. While Mickey's lack of responsibility and maturity is a negative aspect of that childishness, there is a positive aspect: a lack of macho 'tude that makes him catnip to the ladies. When Mikey is treated violently, he does not respond in kind, but ends up prone and whimpering like a babe.

Baker's social realism is not exactly my cup of tea. There are too many shots of the oil refinery smoking away in the background. An attempt to weave the 2016 Presidential election into the film's tapestry is a loose thread that leads nowhere. However, Baker has never before given us such a rich trove of supporting performers, most of whom are making their film debuts. Drew Daniels' cinematography makes even a doughnut shop glow without undue ostentatiousness. Red Rocket ends with Strawberry giving Mikey, the camera, and the audience a bump and grind in a skimpy red bikini. A fantasy send-off to a film designed to puncture America's adolescent fantasies. That Baker seems more willing to couch his cultural critiques in humor and sexuality seems to me a sign of  artistic growth and development.