The deep love within the central relationships of his previous films translates here to something that often feels antagonizing and even predatory in the grooming nature of Mikey’s relationship with Strawberry. However, Red Rocket feels like the ugliest of the bunch, if only because there isn’t that same goodness to be found in Simon Rex’s Mikey.
Sean Baker’s films are successful because even as they portray characters who are morally grey or might make different choices from our own, there’s still a goodness somewhere underneath the rougher exterior of his characters. Hiding the relationship from Lexi, Mikey attempts to encourage Strawberry into running away with him to LA to pursue a career together in the adult film industry.
Mikey approaches the relationship with a boyish delight, taking Strawberry on roller coaster rides and to strip clubs. Their relationship starts to blossom, Strawberry being just as interested in the man twice her age as Mikey is in the barely legal “almost eighteen” year-old. Working the register is a young, freckled-faced redhead nicknamed Strawberry (first-time actress Suzanna Son), to whom Mikey takes an immediate liking. Now a restored family, the trio goes to a nearby “Donut Hole” where Mikey encourages them to order as much as they want as he flaunts his ability to cover the bill. “Are you in?” Lil asks Mikey to give an ultimatum of commitment in one of the film’s strongest scenes. Now able to exceed Lexi’s expectations by paying more of the rent than initially promised, their old fling resurfaces and everything seems to be on the upswing. Seeking pleasure at every turn, Mikey begins to con numerous members of Texas City, including one neighbor who he hitches car rides from and another who he starts pushing drugs for.
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With no car and no cash, Mikey spends his first days riding a borrowed red bicycle to pursue employment to pay off his promised portion of the rent bill, but fails due to his lack of professional work experience and flippant attitude towards entry-level positions. We meet Mikey at his unwelcomed homecoming to a small Texas industrial town as he begs his way back into the life of his ex-wife, Lexi (NYC stage actress Bree Elrod), and her aging mother, Lil (Texas City first-timer Brenda Deiss), having hit rock bottom after burning every bridge of a 15-year career as a porn star in Los Angeles. Rex plays fast and loose, charismatic yet conniving, with a hidden brokenness that subtlety shines through his faded smile. The film is anchored by a career performance from Simon Rex as, “suitcase pimp,” Mikey Saber. Shot on vibrant 16mm film, Baker’s latest project, Red Rocket is a natural progression in his filmography as both his most audaciously provocative work yet and the film sure to earn him the most polarizing reception of his career thus far. As a result, Baker’s films have a tremendous sense of place and an objective honesty, yet respect for the people who live there.
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His characters and their experiences are manufactured, but they’re rooted in real circumstances and genuine struggles as unveiled through a comprehensive research period that often includes a full immersion into these communities and a writing process in collaboration with their residents. By casting many first-time actors – locals often found in the areas he is exploring by methods as unconventional as hiring someone found on Instagram or while shopping in a local Target – Baker’s work is always grounded in a sense of raw naturalism that borders the line between documentary and narrative filmmaking. With previous films including Starlet, the iPhone-photographed Tangerine, and Oscar-nominated The Florida Project, Baker’s work explores underseen communities existing on the fringes of society, often subjected to the political and economic hardships found in contemporary American life. In the past few years, Sean Baker has quickly emerged as one of America’s foremost auteur filmmakers, both in the kinds of stories he puts onscreen and in the artistic processes he’s created to go about telling them.
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