Beach Rats? More Like Beach Trash
Beach Rats tells the story of a marginalized individual by the name of Frankie (Harris Dickinson) who has a hard time coming to terms with his own sexuality. He hooks up with older men online for sex and weed and balances that sex out with his girlfriend, Simone (Madeline Weinstein). The film follows him wandering around Brooklyn like any millenial “I don’t know what I’m doing with my life” kid does; vape, smoke weed & cigarettes, do hard drugs from time to time and have sex with men & women until the movie abruptly ends.
2017 has been a great year for LGBT+ films. The best gay film that came out in 2017, Paris 05:59 Théo & Hugo, showcased a humane relationship between the two protagonists, both of them getting to know each other over the course of one night after one of them has unprotected sex at a gay club.
Beach Rats certainly is no Théo & Hugo, as their main protagonist, Frankie, is an absolute idiot (and asshole, lest we forget). Harris Dickinson does try to give a good, credible performance as Frankie. To that extent, he succeeds, but it’s the character’s writing that made me groan hard. Frankie doesn’t consider himself as a gay man, per se, nor bisexual or heterosexual. He likes to have sex with men for weed and no other reason. The film opens with him chatting with someone online as he wants to see “it”. A couple of minutes later, he meets Simone at the fireworks and they start having a relationship until he acts like a total jerk (exhibit #1) in front of her. Frankie continues acting like an asshole with his “douche squad” of shirtless and underdeveloped side characters that act like total high-school dropouts whom they play ball with, drink and do drugs. They’re not really his “friends”. Actually, we don’t know who they are. They aren’t interesting or add anything to the movie. You know those high-school assholes who post Instagram pictures of themselves at the gym, while skipping classes and acting like total rebels because they think they’re cool? That’s how Frankie’s so-called “friends” are in the movie.
The film follows a rinse n’ repeat structure (cigarette, vape shop, drugs, sex, gay sex, night adventures) until their “douche squad” decide to interfere in Frankie’s homosexual adventures. They want to get high with a “gay dude” (as quoted in the movie) with weed from Colorado, until the aformentioned “gay dude” isn’t interested because Frankie brought his “douche squad”. They decide to lure him in the beach so they can take the weed from him. The characters act like total dicks when they beat him and leave him in the water just for weed. There are would-be interesting sequences in the movie, such as Frankie’s drug addiction that causes a problem with his relationship with his mother (Kate Hodge), but director Eliza Hittman thinks that it isn’t important in the story. The relationship between Frankie and his mother is a tad interesting, but Hittman never really gives us a full look in his relationship, but a tad glimpse. Frankie refuses to tell anything to his mother, and there is no real emotional progression between Frankie at the beginning and Frankie at the end. He has no remorse with what has happened with the attack with his “douche squad”. He doesn’t really feel anything, which is also inherently frustrating. All Frankie does is mope around, have sex and act like an asshole towards his mother and sister. You can’t relate to any character in the movie, because Hittman doesn’t give you time to process what’s happening. Their father is dying of cancer — the next scene, their father died and they quickly move on. Frankie says he’s “coping”, but really he’s coping through drugs and hardcore gay sex to try and, quite possibly, “forget” that his father is no longer with him, but it’s never really clear why he has sex with men, why he’s addicted to prescription drugs and why he does what he does in the movie.
There’s an interesting commentary on Social Media Couples and the hypocrisy of “mirror photography” when Simone and Frankie are in a relationship, but again, the commentary is so brief that you don’t have time to assimilate it as you move on to the next scene. I will say that the movie is beautifully shot on 16mm, especially the sequences in which Frankie is at the Vape Shop. The clouds are vapor look insanely good on 16mm. 16mm gives the movie the grittiness it deserves — if only the material in it was good. The boat scene is also visually compelling, because of the neons on the dance floor. The movie does have good performances from everyone in the movie, and compelling cinematography, but the “rinse n’repeat” structure, completely underdeveloped characters that act like complete moral idiots throughout the entire 98 minute runtime. The movie ends extremely abruptly, which can only mean one thing — Eliza Hittman had nothing of interest to say or do and only wasted our time. Don’t waste your time and watch Théo & Hugo instead.
✯✯
