THE OPINION OF THE “WORLD” – TO SEE
The swindle appeals to the cinema, this art of true lying whose main fuel is the credit given to it. But such credit is not easily earned, and it is even grueling work to snatch the trust of others all day long. Therefore, any scam film concerns this “ persuasive effort » which makes the hustler a character close to both the juggler and the politician in the countryside. And it’s probably not for nothing that Red Rocket, the latest feature film by Sean Baker (Tangerine in 2015, The Florida Project in 2017), takes place at the time of the American presidential campaign of 2016, which saw Donald Trump arrive at the White House. Because Trump is both the evil genius and the mirror to the larks of these lost corners of the United States that the filmmaker, active for more than twenty years in the field of independence, likes to film, with his fringes of population delivered to a harsh resourcefulness, for lack of anything better.
In fact, the hero, a man named Mikey (Simon Rex), with false airs of a model on the back, has nothing to do with a flamboyant crook: he would rather be a small-time scrambler who, by dint of palaver, would almost end up confusing itself. We discover him without a penny in his pocket stranding a bus in Texas City, suburbs where an oil refinery sits enthroned in the middle of decrepit pavilions and colorful signs, a world all in horizontality. He comes knocking on the door of Lexi (Bree Elrod), his wife terrified to see him again when she lives with her mother (Brenda Deiss), where, by dint of pleas, the importunate manages to become embedded. It is from there, from the depths of existence, that the man will try to climb the slope, despite or thanks to his past as “Mike Saber”, a former porn actor spat out of the jungle of Los Angeles. How? ‘Or’ What ? By using everything and everyone to her advantage, and, above all, by sniffing out a young waitress of almost 18, Raylee, known as “Strawberry”, the fiber of a future porn star – in short a precious sesame to return to the profession.
Naive self-belief
With Red Rocket, presented in official competition at Cannes, Sean Baker continues his portrayal of America on the carnival side. An America populated by creatures with brains burned by the myths of self-fulfillment or fame at any cost. It has certainly become rare in American cinema, even independent, for a director to dare like him to portray characters evolving outside of any moral category. Sean Baker does it not out of cynicism or bad spirit, but animated by a form of tenderness for these relentless resourceful people who sometimes go very far into misdirection. It’s that there is a part of innocence in trickery, a naive faith in itself, which the film shares with its protagonist, as long as he “rows” like a damned man to get out of it, dealing grass cycling to the four corners of the city, going out of their way to please his two hostesses. However, this empathetic gaze turns out to be less and less sustainable when Mikey, gaining in power, turns into an odious character, shamelessly exploiting others and falling into sordid pimping.
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