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Beach Rats
Written by Eliza Hittman
Editing: Joe Murphy and Scott Cummings
Music: Nicholas Leone
Release Date: 22 November 2017
Aspect Ratio: 1.85 : 1
Color: Color
Writer-director Eliza Hittman’s follows up her impressive debut, the astutely observed coming-of-age indie It Felt Like Love, with this solid sophomore effort. Whereas her first film followed a 14-year-old Brooklyn girl navigating the confusing and potentially dangerous years of early adolescence, Beach Rats centers on a directionless, late-teenage Brooklyn boy as he attempts to traverse questions about his self-identity. Frankie (Harris Dickinson) escapes his troubled home life by hanging out on the beach, getting high, talking shit, and cruising chicks with his macho bros. But no amount of testosterone-fueled braggadocio can fully conceal Frankie's homosexuality, which he explores online. Everything feels appropriately sexualized yet out of reach in this hazy summer movie, and Haittman perfectly captures that sense of deep melancholy that is only experienced in the teen years.
Eliza Hittman’s second feature is another evocative coming-of-age story set in the hazy, humid outskirts of Brooklyn, this time centered on a late-teenage boy impressively played with a deep inner melancholy by Harris Dickinson.