Red Rocket starts with a man sleeping on a coach bus as it pulls into a small town. He has dark bruises on his face and arms. As he wakes up, he wipes the drool from his face all the while NSYNC’s Bye Bye Bye is blasting over the title credits. Who is this man, getting off the bus in small town Texas City, Texas, a few hours outside of Houston wearing a dirty undershirt and jeans and not even having a bag? He walks across town to a dilapidated house and knocks on the door. This is our introduction to Mikey Saber, played by Simon Rex, in Sean Baker’s latest exploration of parts of society that often go ignored or misrepresented.
Saber isn’t a very honest man, so you often have to piece together stories from the multiple angels he presents them in. He shows up at his estranged wife’s house telling a story about how he had to leave Los Angeles right away and needs a place to stay for a bit while he gets back on his feet. Lexi, played by Bree Elrod, who obviously has a rough history with Mikey is understandably not buying what he is selling, but when he offers to help pay for rent and to do work around the house, Lexi’s mother Lil is very open to him staying. After his bruises heal up we see a montage of Mikey applying to several restaurants, who all note he has a seventeen year gap between his last job until the present day. He reveals that he was a porn star during that period and tells them he is back home trying to work things out with his wife (a lie). Every place is intrigued by the man, but none want to hire him.
In order to make ends meet he goes to a house from an old high school acquaintance where he asks to speak to his mother. Leondria is a drug dealer and Mikey wants to resume selling weed for her just like he did over twenty years earlier. She reluctantly agrees to bring him on even if her daughter June, really doesn’t trust him. As it seems like Mikey is trying to get his life back together, he really is just plotting on how to get back to California and back in the adult entertainment business. Eventually he meets seventeen year old Rayleigh, who goes by the name Strawberry, played by Suzanna Son, working at a donut shop. Mikey has stars in his eyes as he thinks Strawberry could be famous in his line of work. He begins to formulate a plan to convince her to do porn after she turns eighteen.
Despite the grossness of typing this synopsis out, it plays out in a very non judgmental way, typical of a Baker film. His breakthrough film Tangerine, was about two trans prostitutes as they run around town trying to track down their pimp and the boyfriend of one of the women. The film never demonized the sex work or made their gender a punchline. After that he made The Florida Project, which showed the underbelly of poor America living just outside the happiest place on earth (Disney World) as a single mother has to fight every day just to have a roof over her and her daughters head. Here we see a career in pornography something that has its downsides (rampant drug use and high burnout rate) with its upsides (fast and easy money, the freedom to pursue multiple job opportunities in the field). As Strawberry is intrigued by the idea of being in adult films, we see consent constantly being requested and confirmed by what she wants to do and how far she wants to go.
The film is quite comedic, mostly at the expense of Simon Rex, who is quite fit and attractive and very often nude as he is put in precarious situations, that makes his nudity even more funny. He talks a big game and only sometimes backs it up. Rex who has had a long an interesting career from being a MTV on air personality (which he eventually got fired from after it surfaced that he previously had made solo adult films), to being an actor mostly known for the Scary Movie franchise, to a rapper under the name Dirt Nasty, where his most notable hit was a song called My Dick. Even though he is often jumping from one scheme to another in his head, Mikey is still someone you pity and worry about. He may be playing his wife, but you also see how she has hurt him in the past. He is definitely a pervert for dating a girl still in high school but, you also see the connection and bond they form as they both have family issues.
The film takes place in 2016, in the lead up to the US presidential election so we often see and hear the news in the background as they talk about how Clinton has an insurmountable lead and Trump is already claiming the election he would go on to win is rigged, almost making the film nostalgic for a simpler time when the world wasn’t as divided as it currently is. Baker shoots the movie on film giving it a crisp, if not muted colour palette showing us the Texas heat, a contrast to the vibrant Tangerine, which was famously shot on an iPhone. Simon Rex puts on a vulnerable and commanding performance, one that if there is justice would be recognized with an Oscar nomination and a transfixing breakthrough from Suzanna Son, who you understand why Mikey is so obsessed with her southern drawl and charm.
On a personal note, it was fascinating being able to watch this in theatres, marking it as only the fourth film I’ve seen in such a format. Getting to hear the laughs, both uncomfortable or regular ones was a delight. There is a moment where Mikey and his neighbour Lonnie do something really bad, but the audience doesn’t know what it is until several minutes later, and when the reveal occurs there was a large audible gasp from the audience that you just can’t replicate at home. The film ends a bit ambiguously, cutting straight to the credits where no music is played. As the credits rolled, the lights stayed down, perfect to sit and contemplate the meaning of it all, but instead, the sold out crowd at the Hollywood Theatre almost immediately got up and started to leave the room. They turned on their cellphone flashlights and made no qualms about being disruptive. Something I have never seen from a theatre audience, let alone a festival one. Maybe it was the graphic nudity and very frank discussions of sex, or maybe everyone forgot theatre etiquette after being away for so long, but it was just about the strangest experience I have had at the movies.
Red Rocket was seen during the 2021 Vancouver International Film Festival Thank you to the festival for the press pass.
