“Red Rocket” (2021) unfolds during the 2016 U.S. presidential election and focuses on a down on his luck aging porn star, Mike (Simon Rex), who returns to his Texas hometown to get back on his feet again, but cannot find a respectable path to recover and falls into old habits with the belief that he may have found a way back to stardom.
I had no interest in watching “Red Rocket” until I realized that director Sean Baker also directed “Tangerine” (2015), which I thoroughly enjoyed. I still have not gotten around to watching “The Florida Project” (2017), which comes with high recommendations. While the run time of two hours eight minutes is challenging and could have been shorter, Baker has made one of the best films of 2021 by creating a film filled with awful characters and an unflinching eye that captures a life on the financial margins of the US without sentimentality or derision.
I usually make a big deal about the influence of Presidon’t, which is deliberately used as a backdrop to the action of this movie, but unlike other reviewers, I am not going to make explicit comparisons with the reality star and protagonist. I can use the movie to make grand statements about the state of our society. “Red Rocket” captures a snapshot of people to whom politics is irrelevant and unconsidered other than another show to watch on television along with “Judge Faith.” The system of checks and balances and branches of government (judicial, executive, and legislative) are unrecognizable to these characters, and the entertainment version is more real and intersects with their lives. They hope for their fifteen minutes and cannot plan any further into the future. Even a month is too ambitious. The system did not fail them. It does not exist and is not real. What is real is what they can grab now.
Mike is likeable even as you cheer on characters who are wary of him. Viewers will recognize that he is bad news though it is not initially obvious what kind of bad news until he reveals his accomplishments, hopes and dreams. “Red Rocket” opens in a way reminiscent to “Uncut Gems” (2019) where what viewers may mistake as a glimpse of the cosmos is a still close up shot of a bus seat, the worst form of transportation for anyone older than their early twenties. It is a microcosm of potential and disappointment in each person, and though Mike never stops dreaming, which distinguishes him from his contemporaries, his dreams are horrifying. While he benefits from the kindness of others, he does not reciprocate that kindness. If he has a crucial character flaw, he believes that he is better than the people who surround him. He is a man who never learns and is untouched by his experiences even though they leave plenty of bruises. He is Rob Lowe without a good PR team.
Baker grounds his movie in a specific time and place. Like the most recent version of “It” (2017), his surroundings are fraught with a disturbing history: slavery and serial killings. Everything seems normal, below average, industrial, but sunny. It is Earth after The Fall. There are yard sales of used clothes, and Mike’s ability to survive and thrive regardless of his surroundings make him easy for viewers to cheer. There is a bonhomie as the down and out form parallel societies that meet their needs, but by the denouement, we see how these structures are imperfect and pale in comparison to real justice, but just another form of scavenger. Like Mike, it is easy to forget that the land is a gaping, unsatisfied maw of want while also capable of superficial pleasantries. The best scene is when he goes down a roller coaster, and his face betrays his dismay that his real identity is discovered. He recovers from the shock and keeps it pushing, but there are flashes of those moments when people see him as what he is and look at him with no brakes. These are the moments when he must face himself, but he rushes away and moves on to the next hustle.
“Red Rocket” is not a perfect story. It felt as if Baker was setting up a clash between rival drug dealing territories, but he was not. There is very little violence so the threat of it feels weighty. There is plenty of psychological violence. Whenever a character finally feels as if they can finally relax and have found a footing to get back to a normal life instead of desperation, another character knocks them down, especially if those hopes are not mutually advantageous. In this world, people only move forward together if it benefits them otherwise the rug gets pulled out. The closest that anyone gets to accessible mainstream heaven is a donut shop. There are plenty of sexual simulations and full frontal nudity, so if you are sensitive to that type of content, do not watch this film.
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So while I was happy that he was stripped of any pretense so that Strawberry would have more of a chance not to fall for Mike’s schtick, I also wondered if he was treated fairly. Instead of seeing his comeuppance as a hopeful, post racial coalition of neighbors and different segments of society finally coming together to eject a user, I saw them as being cut from the same cloth to different degrees. If genders were reversed, Lexi would be seen as exploitive by getting sex for a place to stay in addition to money, though Mikey freely offers it. It is a demented world in which Mikey also sees it as part of the bargain. He did pay for a month’s rent. He did sell the drugs and kept his deal with Leondria. To tie the two deals together is not fair. Did he get ripped off too? Mikey is not the only character looking out for himself. He is just the worst, but does that mean that he should get ripped off because he is a jerk? “Red Rocket” judges him as a “suitcase pimp” so it implies an offscreen, undeserved enrichment. He is also a predator, and if he is not a pedophile, it is only because the law chose an arbitrary age to deem him appropriate.
If we get a sidequel, I would love if Baker examined Leondria’s world. She is the closest thing to the law in this town with her children as enforcers, but she is also a drug dealer who profits on the despair of her neighborhood. Mikey is successful because he finds the functional part of society and realizes that they must drug themselves to function—psychologically or medicinally because no one has health care. None of these characters created this world. They are just trying to survive, but they perpetuate it, which is the real tragedy of “Red Rocket.”
The next generation of children do not stand a chance. Strawberry is ripe for the picking and will be exploited. Her ex-boyfriend is being taught to be a bully of a grown man. And an offscreen child is in government custody because his mom cannot provide for him, and his father is not in the picture. “Red Rocket” is sad even as it is riveting to watch. What can we offer them to get them out of this cycle when our rules and programs cannot help their parents?
