Jonah Hill’s Directorial Debut “Mid90s” and Skateboarding Culture
This movie captures the joy of skateboarding.
Mid90s is a film I’ve always wanted to love a lot more than I do. On the surface, it seems like the perfect film for people like me. I’m someone who loves skateboarding and the culture around it and from this film, it’s very clear Jonah Hill does too so I’ve always found it disappointing that I just couldn’t get into this film. Mainly because this is a film that’s carried by its cast and setting, which I love however they’re not enough to completely eclipse the negatives for me.
Before I say what I don’t like I will admit there is quite a bit about this film that I do like. The thing I love most about this film is its characters, Mainly the group of friends we follow throughout the story. The group have such incredible chemistry together and watching them feel just like watching a group of friends hang out. They bounce off each other really well and whenever they’re together a lot of the funnier lines hit harder.
There’s something that screams authenticity from them and honestly, this film would be nothing without the dynamics between them. Even though not all of their characters are fully fleshed out and their story is somewhat weak at points, it’s still fun to watch them hang out and skate together. I love that Jonah Hill decided to cast real skateboarders as their performances feel very genuine and authentic when they could very easily have come across as fake or “corny.”
The film's authenticity doesn’t stop there either because one of the best parts of the film is its portrayal of the journey of someone new to skateboarding. Jonah Hill is someone who has been very vocal about his love for skate culture and he really did it justice in this film as a lot of the things Sunburn goes through are things all beginners will face and it’s all very relatable. Seeing him land his first ollie after hours of trying brought a smile to my face because that’s something I and many others can relate to and Jonah Hill was able to capture the euphoric feeling of landing your first trick perfectly.
Hill was also able to capture the skateboarding culture and portray it in a way that feels real. I hate to use this word to describe it but for lack of a better term, Hill does a great job of getting the “Vibe” of skateboarding right. A lot of the scenes where we get to see the friends hanging out and skating feel relatable as they remind me of hanging out and skating with my friends. They capture the fun and carefree nature of skateboarding and do a good job of glamorizing the culture and making it look like something everyone would want to be a part of.
One of the first things you’ll notice about this film is the way it looks. Jonah Hill and his team do a great job at making this film look and feel like a 90s skate video. Everything from the aspect ratio to the clothes does a great job of creating this retro aesthetic. Plus the soundtrack of the film pieces everything together as it’s full of iconic 90’s tracks that are synonymous with the skateboarding culture of the time. The world created here feels very raw and authentic and you can tell it’s from someone who loves the time period and culture.
Now onto the things that stop this film from being perfect for me. I think the story being told is very generic and badly written at points. Especially when it comes to dealing with conflict. A lot of the film’s conflicts are set up decently but then the film just leaves them for a while then brings them up later. This makes a lot of the later conflicts in the film feel very abrupt and like they’re only there to move the plot forwards instead of feeling natural. I’m mainly referring to the fight between Sunburn and Ruben when I say this but this also somewhat applies to the tension in Sunburn’s relationship with his brother.
Though I think the main characters in this film are pretty good I sadly can’t say the same for Sunburn’s brother. Lucas Hedges’ character feels very undercooked as we don’t really know anything about him and a lot of his actions feel very unnecessarily mean and malicious yet we’re not meant to hate him because the film does the “hey he’s not all bad” thing at the end. The script attempts to rationalize his character in one scene but really I don’t think this scene was enough because it still didn’t really tell us anything about him or why he is the way he is. This made the end of his character arc feel very unmoving as I didn’t really feel like enough was done to get us to that point.
This underdone feeling applies to the entire ending of the film. The film's later moments move by at an incredibly fast pace and it leaves no space to resolve everything from the story. At the point where I think the film might try and do that it just ends and I was left feeling quite unsatisfied as I don’t think anyone had a good, fully realized character arc. Stuff happened to them and we think they change but really none of this change is ever actually shown we just sorta hope they have changed.
This is a film that could have just used an extra half an hour to fully dive into its characters and provide the audience with a more rounded and whole story. Because of the weak points in the story, this isn’t a film I can love no matter how much I want to. Though I will say I enjoyed a lot of this film and I think it does quite a few things really well. This is still a pretty impressive film considering it’s Jonah Hill’s directorial debut and I’m excited to see where he goes next in his filmmaking career.
