Scene from Red Rocket, in cinemas now.
An inveterate hustler plots his comeback in this often hilarious, sometimes queasy dramedy from acclaimed indie filmmaker Sean Baker.
The film opens with Mikey Saber (Simon Rex) arriving back in his Texan hometown after 15 years in Los Angeles as a pornography performer. He convinces his estranged wife and her mother to let him crash on their couch, but his work history hinders his job prospects, so he ends up selling weed for the local drug dealer.
Desperate to get back to LA and the industry he left behind, Mikey sees his opportunity in Strawberry (Suzanna Son), a 17-year-old working at the local donut shop. Mikey and Strawberry begin a relationship, and he sets about grooming her to be his re-entry ticket into the porn world.
Driven by a hugely entertaining, career-reviving performance from Rex (who deserved an Oscar nomination for this), Red Rocket recalls the best 1970s films in how it is a study of a morally bereft character you simply can't take your eyes off.
Mikey is a bad guy, for sure, but Rex and Baker do a great job of illustrating how he has charmed his way through life. The film doesn't endorse, apologise for, or condemn Mikey's behaviour, but it is clear-eyed about how he (mostly) gets away with it.
Rex - hitherto best known for millennial TV drama Jack & Jill and some of the Scary Movies - exudes a scuzzy charisma that commands the screen. Son is fantastic too – Strawberry is clearly under Mikey's spell, but she is not without agency.
As in previous works Tangerine and The Florida Project, Baker peppers this film with non-professional actors and once again displays a talent for artfully capturing an unvarnished, ground-level sense of modern life in the parts of America usually ignored by cinema.
Cast: Simon Rex, Suzanna Son, Bree Elrod
Director: Sean Baker
Running time: 130 mins
Rating: R16 ( Drug use, offensive language & explicit sexual material)
Verdict: A darkly funny portrait of a charming scumbag.