Title: Beach Rats
Year: 2017
Country: USA
Language: English
Genre: Drama
Director/Screenwriter: Eliza Hittman
Music: Nicholas Leone
Cinematography: Hélène Louvart
Editing: Scott Cummings, Joe Murphy
Cast:
Harris Dickinson
Madeline Weinstein
Kate Hodge
Nicole Flyus
Frank Hakaj
David Ivanov
Anton Selyaninov
Douglas Everett Davis
Harrison Sheehan
Erik Potempa
Neal Huff
Rating: 6.9/10
Title: Never Rarely Sometimes Always
Year: 2020
Country: USA, UK
Language: English
Genre: Drama
Director/Screenwriter: Eliza Hittman
Music: Julia Holter
Cinematography: Hélène Louvart
Editing: Scott Cummings
Cast:
Sidney Flanigan
Talia Ryder
Théodore Pellerin
Sharon Van Etten
Ryan Eggold
Mia Dillon
Brian Altemus
Rating: 7.5/10
A double-bill of two films from emergent American filmmaker Eliza Hittman, BEACH RATS is her second feature about a closeted gay teen’s coming-of-age tale, sort of. Frankie (Dickinson), a Brooklynite born from the wrong side of the track, piddling around with his cohorts of tearaways in the usual blokeish pastimes (playing handball, loitering in the beach, smoking weeds or vapes, enjoying recreational gateway substance abuse, etc.), struggles with his concealed homosexuality.
NEVER RARELY SOMETIMES ALWAYS, Hittman’s third film, is also about a working-class teenager, 17-year-old Autumn Callahan (Flanigan), hailed from Pennsylvania, is pregnant, accompanied by her cousin Skylar (Ryder, a starlet acquits herself convincingly for her wholesome support and sisterly rapport), they embark on a sortie to NYC, so that she can have the abortion without alerting her parents, but things never turn out like what she envisions (she even loses a game to a chicken in a chicken booth).
Both films have a succinct synopsis, but Hittman is such an extraordinarily astute screenwriter that those everyday-like experiences of these two youngsters are played out like the real deal, often lensed through tactile close-ups and reflected mostly through actions than words. Frankie’s clandestine assignations with elder men, his gauche attempt to function like a heterosexual by hooking up with a loose girl Simone (Weinstein) can only recoil upon him (erectile dysfunction is treated in a matter-of-fact abruptness, Frankie could be biromantic, but certainly not bisexual).
Autumn and Skylar’s none-too-spectacular trip to NYC is even more so, Hittman deliberately keeps mum of any extraneous information from audience, as Autumn is anything but demonstrative, the father of her baby is never pinned down (the most likely candidate intimated by Hittman could only exacerbate our declining faith in the male specie), we can only glimpse her past through the convo between her and a clinic doctor (where the film’s title derives from). Restraint is exacted upon the narrative, everything on show is presented exclusively from Autumn’s own wavelength, but it doesn’t feel imposed, as in reality, it is Autumn’s life, she is the sole fount where we can get any particulars of her story, if she keeps her own counsel, audience can only make allowance for it. In both films, their narratives are linear, no flashback is used as an explicative device.
That doesn’t mean we are unable to relate to the protagonists’ emotions, Frankie’s self-denying and straight-acting endeavor can barely hide his insecurity, the perpetual fear that his secret will be brought to the daylight is fiercely betrayed by Dickinson’s stoical, inscrutable expression that what we can term as “putting on an aloof straight face”, his blue eyes are always alert, guarded, distant. Even in the tender moments, like when he practices carnal knowledge with a man in a motel room, Frankie is never fully there, he only seeks for sexual gratification, any suggestion for deeper human connection is thwarted by his Adonis physique and impassive blankness. Hittman blatantly exhibits the underside of a gay melodrama, wearing down by his carapace, Frankie’s warped identification of himself can only lead him up the garden path, corroborated by the weed-hustling scam (a stalking horse for his online dating in front of his straight pals, but is there another closeted one among them?), next step, a male escort is very possibly down the line. BEACH RATS is a sobering look on urban homosexuality, but its dismal perspective might deter warm responses.
N.R.S.A. inherits and doubles down Hittman’s clinical idiom, and since it grittily wrestles with the hot-button issues of abortion (its pro-choice stance is so unflinching, Autumn doesn’t register any visible concern about her baby), abusive relationship, toxic family environment (a father figure going around the bend), harassment that inflicts on women on a daily basis at the hands of predatory men (slut-shaming caddishness) - the latter, pointedly striking home in the episode with a seemingly nice guy Jasper (Pellerin), who is not above taking advantage of the girl’s plight to cop a feel, is mostly astonishing, how we might take it for granted after being chronically desensitized, it is simply not right! - the film runs up against more brickbat for its unorthodox modus operandi.
Luckily, Flanigan is a phenomenal discovery, who can really attune her performance with Hittman’s tonal commitment, steely roots Autumn in her own head space, rounding out her portrayal with subtle and veristic evocative import, her Autumn is both anonymous and singular, an oxymoron that befits the story trying to rouse resonances and universal compassion, even from those who hold an opposite ideology. And one thing is for certain, what beckons Autumn in the future is more sanguine than what is set in store for Frankie, she might be able to have her foot on the ground after the ordeal, whereas him, shiftless and spacey, the monkey on his back is more detrimental in the long haul than his proclivity for elder men.
referential entries: Francis Lee’s GOD’S OWN COUNTRY (2017, 8.7/10); Cristian Mungiu’s 4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS AND 2 DAYS (2007, 8.9/10).
