‘Mid90s’ is a new skater classic

Posted on November 9, 2018

By MARK VIOLA

I’ve always been a sucker for a good coming-of-age story, and to find one with a main character going through a rough teenage existence in the mid-90s — well, that hits close to home.

The aptly-titled “Mid90s” is the directorial debut of actor Jonah Hill, who also penned the screenplay. The story follows as 13-year-old Stevie (Sunny Suljic, “The Killing of a Sacred Deer”), who has a pretty rotten home life thanks to his abusive older brother (Lucas Hedges, “Manchester by the Sea”) despite an obviously caring mother (“Katherine Waterston, “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Fund Them”).

This leads Stevie to the streets (to play, not to live), where he encounters a group of older skaters, to whom he immediately feels a kinship, and his interests quickly begin to change to align with theirs. While the group welcomes him into the fold, the decisions they lead him to make cannot be said to be good ones (at least not some of them). The story doesn’t ask us to judge these decisions, but instead only to watch the journey, although there should probably be a few more consequences shown, if only to keep the level of realism the rest of the film exudes.

This is a great freshman effort from Hill, both from a writing and a directing standpoint, and really captures the look and feel of the mid-90s.

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