February 18, 2023
Whether he knows it or not, Sean Baker is one of our most deeply intelligent humanists. He has a singular ability to excavate the complexity and the mundane (self-inflicted) tragedy of modern human life. His protagonists are deeply troubled and problematic people, opportunists and narcissists and survivors, and somehow no matter how badly they behave, there is some small part of you that roots for them, anticipates a redemption that never comes.
Mikey (played by Simon Rex) is terrible, predatory, parasitic – and there are hints that he knows it, and there is that fleeting spark of possibility that maybe this time will be different. And of course, it never is. I think the most telling relationship in the film is between Mikey and Lonnie, that destructive trajectory as Mikey exploits Lonnie then easily abandons him at the first sign of trouble. The palpable hypocrisy when Mikey criticizes Lonnie for a scam that is vastly less malicious than his own b