Beach Rats

A New York summer has rarely felt lonelier and bleaker than in BEACH RATS. Eliza Hittman's atmospheric filmmaking makes everything--the block, the house, an identity--feel like a prison for the movie's closeted protagonist. It also carries a lunkheaded verisimilitude that mirrors the blankness and indecisiveness of youth, where everything feels so lively and new yet, in retrospect, was mostly a slow burn of wasted time.

Beautiful small-scale character drama. The narrative progresses with a masterful fluidity, a symptom of it being a series of moral crises and character-defining decisions. There are so many qualities to this that suggest it was crafted by a gifted director - lack of suffocating score, expert casting, lived-in roles, authentic setting, weighty atmosphere. You take it seriously without it asking you to take it seriously.

I realize I'm a pretty much straight dude judging a movie made by a woman, so I'll qualify this as non-authoritative, but as a psychological drama involving a closeted gay youth and his online-sourced hookups, I found this highly plausible (not necessarily representative, but persuasive). Dickinson is pretty good, and the script is solid and consistent.

There's this thing that indie movies with small budgets do, where they drag out their runtime with lots of nothing, attenuating whatever emotional resonance they may have. Congrats, you made a sponge cake with not enough icing. Do you think this dry brick is worth eating, let alone baking? Nice electrosynth soundtrack, though—so nice that I bothered to track it down, which I virtually never do.

ah. I cant believe the cinema has come to this. If anyone picks up a handycam and goes filming the little beetle in the garden for an hour, compared to this movie, it would be worth watching. at least the beetle may have a plot for his actions.

A solid character piece with very naturalistic performances by its young cast (consisting mostly of actors I hadn't seen before).

The characters are recognisable, though I'm not sure they needed the dying dad, and the lead actor's expressions run all the way from sullen to moody, but it all feels a little amateurish.

The acting is a bit lame, thus it did not capture the otherwise beautiful story. It also failed to create a memorable climax. The actors seem to be too far out that you can't feel them. My SCORING: 99-96=Great; 95-90=Very good; 89-85=Good; 84-80=So-so; 79-70=Boring; Below 70=Forget it.

Haunting, low-key character study is beautifully understated and perfectly captures the aimless, seedy milieu of Dickinson's blank-slate late teen. A lack of major dramatic fireworks may be frustrating at times, but Hittman seems more interested in the minutiae of daily life - creating a real feel for the sights and emotions driving her protagonist. A worthy and memorable addition to the 'coming of age' canon.

Sagitário.

Yeah, not a whole lot happens in Beach Rats but the music and performances are both good enough to at least make this a pretty good flick. I wasn't bored at any point, which is kind of surprising when I think back about what exactly happened and how it unfolded. I enjoy the ending, however, it was pretty beautiful.

A whole lot of nothing happens, although the performances are mostly good.

A beautifully made character study.

Viewed April 28, 2017.