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As much as I like Tangerine and The Florida Project, director Sean Baker leaves me cold with Red Rocket. Former adult film actor Simon Rex stars as Mikey, a middle-aged douchebag porn star who flees Hollywood to lick his wounds in Galveston, Texas, where he convinces his estranged wife (Bree Elrod) and her mother (Brenda Deiss) to take him in while he gets back on his feet financially. He starts selling dope and flirting with a seventeen year old donut shop slut (Suzanna Son), despite promising to make a serious effort to rekindle his marriage. Mikey plans to head back to Hollywood with his weed money and the donut girl as his next big ‘porno find’, but his world comes crashing down when all those around him become hip to his myriad lies.
In Baker’s previous films, the characters were able to engender some amount of empathy from me. But there isn’t one single, solitary shred of likeability in Mikey’s character here. And no one else in the film is likeable either — they’re all drug addicts or sex fiends who trade their allegiances to the highest bidders. There’s no ray of light or hope in Red Rocket — just ugliness. It’s a very well made film and the acting is pretty solid overall — especially considering Baker’s proclivity to hire inexperienced non-actors for many of the roles. If you want to see a portrait of how manipulative and self-serving men can be, Red Rocket paints a disturbingly accurate picture. But why subject yourself to such an experience? Red Rocket made me feel dirty. I needed a shower immediately after seeing it.
Written by Sean Baker and Chris Bergoch. With Judy Hill, Ethan Darbone, and Brittney Rodriguez.