Simon Rex Archives – CULTURE MIX

Review: ‘Tow’ (2026) starring Rose Byrne, Dominic Sessa, Simon Rex, Demi Lovato, Ariana DeBose and Octavia Spencer

April 4, 2026

by Carla Hay

Rose Byrne in “Tow” (Photo courtesy of Roadside Attractions and Vertical)

“Tow” (2026)

Directed by Stephanie Laing

Culture Representation: Taking place in Seattle (with a a few scenes taking in place in Utah), the comedy/drama film “Tow” (based on real events) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some African Americans and Latin people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A down-on-her-luck woman is living out of her car, which is stolen and towed, and she fights a year-long battle to get back her car.

Culture Audience: “Tow” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and movies about vagrants who experience obstacles in a system that treats them as inferior to people with permanent home addresses.

Dominic Sessa and Rose Byrne in “Tow” (Photo courtesy of Roadside Attractions and Vertical)

“Tow” sometimes gets caught up in a sitcom tone that lowers the quality of this comedy/drama that’s based on a true story. However, Rose Byrne shines in the role of a woman fighting to get back her towed car that was her residence. The movie capably shows how being pulled out of a vagrancy rut is not as simple as finding someone a job or temporary shelter.

Directed by Stephanie Laing, “Tow” was written by Jonathan Keasey and Brant Boivin. Byrne is one of the producers of the movie, which had its world premiere at the 2025 Tribeca Festival. “Tow” takes place primarily in Seattle in 2017 and 2018, with some scenes taking place in Utah. The movie was actually filmed in New Jersey. “Tow” is inspired by real events that happened to Seattle resident Amanda Ogle during this time period.

“Tow,” which is told in chronological order, begins in 2017, by showing Amanda Ogle (played by Byrne) in a job interview. Amanda is a “vehicular resident”—someone whose home is a vehicle—but she’s embarrassed to tell people that this is her living situation. Amanda’s car is a 1991 blue Toyota Camry that has all of her possessions.

Amanda has a veterinary technician license and is applying for a job at a veterinary clinic. However, the interviewer (who is not seen on camera) questions if Amanda is qualified for the job because Amanda doesn’t have a college degree. Amanda, who is often blunt and rude when she gets defensive, replies: “You need a college degree to stick a thermometer up a dog’s ass?” The interviewer says the job is more about people skills. And it’s at this point you know Amanda isn’t going to be hired for this job.

Even though Amanda’s hair and clothes are clean, there are indications she’s having a tough time in life because her upper teeth are caked in plaque. Amanda (who likes to wear a lot of pink) has fallen on hard times and is recovering from alcoholism. She is later shown in a support group meeting for addiction recovery, but she refuses to share her story. Her aloofness in these meetings is a pattern for her, but you just know at some point she’ll eventually open up and tell her story.

Amanda is a single mother to a child named Avery (played by Elsie Fisher), who is about 16 or 17. Avery is currently living in Utah with an unnamed family that is not related to Avery and Amanda. It’s implied that Avery is in a foster care system.

Although the movie never says the word “non-binary” out loud, Avery’s pronouns are “they/them.” Amanda is completely accepting of Avery and is supportive of Avery’s passion for designing costumes for role-playing games. Fisher does quite well in the role as Avery and actually wears clothes designed by the real-life Avery Ogle for this movie.

It’s later mentioned in the movie that Amanda lost custody of Avery because of Amanda’s alcohol addiction, Amanda’s unstable living situation and because Amanda attempted suicide three years ago. Amanda and Avery keep in touch by phone. However, there’s some tension in the relationship because Avery has often been let down by Amanda’s broken promises to Avery. Amanda has promised Avery that Amanda will visit Avery in Utah for the upcoming Christmas holiday.

Things seem to be looking up for Amanda when she gets a job at another veterinary clinic by charming the interviewer with some helpful animal care advice. The job requires Amanda to use her car for transportation of animals. Amanda is elated to get the job, but her happiness turns to dismay when she leaves the building and sees that her car has been stolen.

Amanda calls police to report that her car has been stolen. She later finds out that the unknown car thief parked the car in a zone where the car got towed. Amanda goes to Kaplan’s Towing Service, the place that has her car. The front-desk employee who processes the towing documents and payments is a guy named Cliff (played by Simon Rex), who informs her that the cost to get her vehicle returned to her is $270.23 plus $50 a day for every day that the car is at this towing place.

Amanda’s doesn’t have the money and doesn’t think it’s fair that she has to pay the towing fees because the car was stolen and parked in a towing zone. Cliff refuses Amanda’s pleas to let her have the car back without paying the fees because he says he could get fired if he breaks the rules for her. When Cliff figures out that Amanda was living out of the car, he shows some mercy and lets her take out some items she needs from the car.

The next part of the movie doesn’t look very believable because of some plot contrivances. Instead of going to her new job, where she could earn the money to pay the towing fee, Amanda goes to an unnamed government clerk’s office to find out how she can sue Kaplan’s Towing Service to get her car back without paying the towing fees. Amanda doesn’t even bother calling the place that hired her to explain her situation, just in case they could let her work for a few days without a car.

Amanda thinks that Kaplan’s Towing Service is “extorting” her and “scamming” her, when actually Amanda has no way of proving that a random thief parked the car in a towing zone. It’s not the towing company’s responsibility to find out who parked the car in a place where the car could get towed. And that’s why there are parts of this “underdog” story that aren’t convincing in trying to portray Amanda as a victim who was defrauded by a towing company.

While she’s at the clerk’s office, Amanda is approached by a 24-year-old attorney named Kevin Eggers (played by Dominic Sessa), who works for a non-profit group called Northwest Consumer Law Center. Kevin explains that he overheard Amanda talking about her towed vehicle problem, and he offers to help her by taking on her case pro bono (for free). “My mission is to help people like you fight corporate bullies,” Kevin says to Amanda, who declines his offer because she thinks he’s condescending and because she thinks she can fight her legal battles on her own. However, Amanda keeps the business card that Kevin gave to her.

With nowhere else to live, Amanda is referred to a women’s shelter located inside a church. The shelter’s manager is Barbara (played by Octavia Spencer), who is strict and religious. Barbara allows a desperate Amanda to stay there, even though the shelter is already at capacity. Barbara explains to Amanda that the rules for shelter residents include adhering to the shelter’s curfews, abstaining from alcohol and illegal drugs, attending group meetings, and looking for employment. Amanda says she’ll follow the rules and mentions she’s been sober for the past seven months.

Throughout the movie, captions appear on screen to show how many days Amanda has been without her car. The legal dispute that she thought would be cleared up in a few months ends up stretching into a little more than a year. She experiences many disappointments and setbacks along the way, mainly because Kaplan’s Towing and Service’s wealthy and arrogant owner Martin LaRosa (played by Corbin Bernsen) spitefully drags out the case and plays dirty tricks during the legal battle. It should come as no surprise that Amanda ends up hiring attorney Kevin when she feels that she’s run out of options.

At the church shelter, Amanda has some difficulty adjusting because she doesn’t want to get close to anyone. Amanda is not aggressively hostile to the other residents, but she has an attitude that she doesn’t really belong there because she thinks she can do much better in her life. Amanda’s sobriety is tested because of all the stress she experiences from the lawsuit and from her tenuous relationship with Avery. Amanda also gets into some conflicts with no-nonsense Deborah, who opens up to Amanda about her own troubled past.

Some of the shelter residents whom Amanda encounters include pregnant Nova (played by Demi Lovato), who says she has no friends or family members who can help her; feisty Denise (played by Ariana DeBose), a divorced mother who lost custody of her two kids because of Denise’s various addictions; friendly Lorraine (played by Bree Elrod), who has a mental illness that causes her to hallucinate; and combative Jocelyn (played by Lea DeLaria), who gets into a physical fight with Amanda when Jocelyn steals Amanda’s combat boots, which are the only shoes that Amanda owns.

Amanda’s experiences at the shelter take up a great deal of screen time in the movie, even though she doesn’t live there for most of the story. And although these scenes are well-acted, the shelter scenes are uneven, as if the movie isn’t sure how much it wants to spend developing characters who are ultimately transient in Amanda’s life. This isn’t the type of movie where Amanda makes lifelong friends with any of the shelter residents. There are also some repetitive scenes where Amanda wakes up in the shelter as if she’s just had a nightmare.

Lovato (who is better known as a singer than as an actress) seems to be in the movie so she can have a big singing scene, which happens when she belts out “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” during a Christmas party scene at the shelter. Lovato’s Nova character is young enough to be Amanda’s daughter, so there are a few scenes where Amanda feels somewhat maternal toward Nova. DeBose looks a little too polished for the “rough around the edges” character she’s supposed to portray, but she gives a fairly convincing performance as someone who tries to make a friendship connection with Amanda.

In the role of Barbara, Spencer does the best that she can with the type of “tough love” character that is often a cliché in these types of movies. Sessa’s Kevin is an over-eager and nerdy lawyer character that also comes dangerously close to being a stereotype, although Sessa brings a lot of talented nuance to the role. The unlikely bond that develops between Kevin and Amanda is one of the best things about the movie because this working friendship looks organic, even if hardly anything is told in the movie about Kevin’s personal life.

“Tow” shows some periods of time when Amanda is living on the streets without her car. “Tow” somewhat glosses over the dangers of being in this situation, especially with Amanda being an unarmed woman who’s living on her own. The worst encounter she experiences with someone else on the streets is being approached by a hustler type named Ace the Car Rancher (played by Lío Mehiel), who tries to entice Amanda into working for Ace as a sex worker. Amanda declines the offer and walks away from Ace, who doesn’t harm her.

Amanda is unemployed for almost the entire movie, which doesn’t adequately explain how she gets enough money to survive. She’s not eligible for Social Security payments. And without a permanent address, Amanda doesn’t get welfare money either. At one point, Amanda is seen selling a street newspaper but not getting any buyers. It’s a job that Barbara originally suggested that Amanda take. But Amanda wasn’t interested at the time because she would have to buy the newspapers at 60 cents each and selling them for $2 each, leaving her with only a profit of $1.40 per newspaper.

The music score and some of the dialogue in “Tow” sometimes try too hard to be cute and whimsical. “Tow” did not have to be a dark and depressing movie, but the subject matter isn’t cute or whimsical, which is why some of the movie’s tone is mismatched. Through it all and even with these flaws, Byrne’s captivating performance is the movie’s best highlight. Amanda has a realistic personality, even if some of the scenarios around her don’t always look like they happened that way in real life. It’s easy to like “Tow” and forgive the movie’s imperfections when the movie’s imperfect protagonist is easy to root for and has emotional authenticity.

Roadside Attractions and Vertical released “Tow” in select U.S. cinemas on March 20, 2026.

Review: ‘Americana’ (2025), starring Sydney Sweeney, Paul Walter Hauser and Halsey

August 20, 2025

by Carla Hay

Paul Walter Hauser, Sydney Sweeney and Halsey in “Americana” (Photo courtesy of Lionsgate)

“Americana” (2025)

Directed by Tony Tost

Culture Representation: Taking place in South Dakota and in Wyoming, the comedy/drama film “Americana” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some Native Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: Several people become entangled in a violent power struggle to own a valuable Lakota ghost shirt.

Culture Audience: “Americana” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and 21st century Westerns that mix violent action with serious drama and absurdist comedy.

Gavin Maddox Bergman and Zahn McClarnon in “Americana” (Photo by Ursula Coyote/Courtesy of Lionsgate)

If 1994’s “Pulp Fiction” and 1996’s “Fargo were put in a blender and fermented in South Dakota and Wyoming, it would be the lumpy comedy/drama “Americana.” Halsey stands out in this erratic story about people fighting over a Lakota ghost shirt. “American” is very derivative in some ways but has enough unique elements and engaging performances to be watchable for people who don’t mind seeing an uneven Western with a second half that’s better than the first half.

Written and directed by Tony Tost, “Americana” is his feature-film directorial debut and had its world premiere at the 2023 SXSW Film and TV Festival. The movie (which was filmed in New Mexico) is told in five chapters, with events shown in non-chronological order in the first half of the movie. “Americana” features a group of characters, most of whom are strangers to each other, who become entangled in each other’s lives—for better or for worse.

It takes a while before “Americana” find its best groove because the characters start off being very one-dimensional. The movie begins in an unnamed small town in South Dakota, where Amanda “Mandy” Starr (played by Halsey) is living in a trailer with pre-teen Calvin “Cal” Starr (played by Gavin Maddox Bergman), who’s about 9 or 10 years old. Cal is an eccentric child who is being raised as Mandy’s brother. Also living in the trailer is Mandy’s abusive boyfriend Dillon MacIntosh (played by Eric Dane), who complains in the first scene that Cal is living with them.

Dillon (who’s about 20 years older than Mandy) owns the trailer and car that he and Mandy are using. It’s the first indication that Mandy has fallen on hard times and is financially dependent on Dillon. Cal is fixated on pretending that he is the reincarnation of Sitting Bull, the Hunkpapa Lakota chief who died in 1890 and led a resistance against U.S. government policies that were harmful to Native Americans.

Cal never wavers from acting as if he’s Sitting Bull. Why is Cal having an identity crisis? The answer is revealed later in the movie, which implies that Cal knows a secret that other people don’t want him to know.

Cal is outside when Mandy suddenly runs out of the trailer and tells Cal that they have to leave immediately. She says Dillon is unconscious because she smashed his head with a weapon. (A flashback scene later reveals that Mandy used a hammer for this attack.) Mandy is fleeing the scene by taking Dillon’s car.

Cal refuses to leave because, as Sitting Bull, he says his land is here. Mandy is in a frustrated panic and is in a rush to leave, with or without Cal. When she sees that Cal won’t leave with her, she tells him to go to the Whitleys’ house nearby because the Whitleys can take care of Cal. It’s presumed that the Whitleys are neighbors who know Mandy and Cal. Mandy then speeds away and leaves Cal to fend for himself.

“Americana” then shows the rest of the characters who make up this tangled web. Lefty Ledbetter (played by Paul Walter Hauser), who is actually right-handed, is a socially awkward and lovelorn military veteran who wants to find a nice woman to marry. He “falls in love” very quickly and his marriage proposals get rejected. How quickly does Lefty fall in love”?

In one of the movie’s first scenes with Lefty, he asks a woman named Brittany Gable (played by Austin Boyce) to marry him after they’ve been dating each other for two weeks. Brittany says no because even though she thinks Lefty is a nice guy, they don’t know each other well. Brittany immediately breaks up with Lefty after he proposes.

Lefty is a regular customer at George’s 50s Diner, where Penny Jo (played by Sydney Sweeney) is a server. Penny Jo is shy and sweet. She’s an aspiring singer whose idol is Dolly Parton. Penny Jo’s dream is to move to Nashville to become a country music singer, but she doesn’t have the money and she’s self-conscious about her speech impediment that often makes it hard for her to form words in a sentence.

Lefty and Penny Jo become platonic friends because they both feel like misfits in this world and haven’t had much luck when it comes to dating. Even though Penny Jo is physically attractive and gets attention from men, she is very introverted and seems to be afraid of having an active social life. Penny Jo lives with her strict and cranky grandmother Tish Poplin (played by Harriet Sansom Harris), who scolds Penny Jo for playing the guitar at night in Penny Jo’s bedroom. Tish thinks Penny Jo is foolish for wanting to be a country music star and discourages Penny Jo from pursuing this dream.

One day at the diner, Penny Jo observes three customers who are seated at the same table for a meeting. It’s a flashback scene showing Dillon, his younger crony Reggie Dale (played by Jasper Keen) and a museum owner named Roy Lee Dean (played by Simon Rex), as they concoct a scheme to steal a rare Lakota ghost shirt from a wealthy artifact collector named Pendleton Duvall (played by Toby Huss), who lives in South Dakota. Various people name prices of what they’d be willing to pay for in the sale of the shirt. Roy, for example, is willing to pay $500,000 for it so he could possibly resell it on the black market.

Some other people want the shirt for different reasons. The Red Thunder Society, which is described by its members as a Lakota Nation version of the Blank Panthers, also wants possession of the shirt, which was originally stolen from the Lakota Nation many years ago. Red Thunder Society leader Ghost Eye (played by Zahn McClarnon) and his main sidekick Hank Spears (played by Derek Hinkey) have prominent roles in the story.

It’s enough to say that the ghost shirt is stolen from Pendleton. And several people try to gain possession of the shirt, with deadly consequences. At one point in the movie, a desperate Mandy goes back to her family’s home in rural Wyoming. It’s revealed that she’s the prodigal daughter of a very religious clan led by Mandy’s father Hiram Starr (played by Christopher Kriesa), a racist and sexist patriarch who expects the women in the family to act and dress like farm women who live in the 1820s, not the 2020s.

Also living in the oppressive Starr household are Mandy’s mother/Hiram’s wife Grace Starr (played by Augusta Allen-Jones) and Mandy’s sisters Abigail Starr (played by Rhiannon Frazier), Florence Starr (played by Kenzie Shea Ross) and Calliope Starr (played by Emily Perry), whose ages range from late teens to early 20s. It’s during this tension-filled family reunion that Halsey has her best scenes, as the character of Mandy is revealed to be more than the self-centered rebel than she first appears to be.

Of course, not everyone will make it out alive when the inevitable gunfight showdown occurs. The trailer for “Americana” already reveals a lot about the movie that should have been left out of the trailer and left to be surprises for people who watch “Americana” for the first time. However, there are some worthwhile parts of the movie that aren’t in the trailer.

Because Mandy is the most complex character in “Americana,” the movie showcases Halsey’s impressive acting range, as she becomes the scene-scene star of the show. Not so great are the movie’s cheap-looking wigs that look like they’re from 1981: Sometimes, Mandy’s hair looks like she’s a Joan Jett wannabe. Other times, Mandy’s hair looks like Paul Stanley from Kiss.

Sweeney puts in a good performance as the stammering Penny Jo, who becomes more confident as the story goes along. However, you never forget that Sweeney is acting, whereas Halsey’s performance is more natural. Although “Americana” is marketed around Sweeney’s image and the Penny Jo character, Mandy has the most interesting story and is the real leading character.

All of the other well-known cast members in “Americana” are perfectly adequate in their roles but have played these types of characters many times before on screen: Hauser as the sad-sack outsider, Dane as the nasty criminal, Rex as a sleazy hustling/con man type. It doesn’t help that he characters of Lefty, Dane and Rex are underdeveloped. By the end of the movie, you still won’t know much about these characters outside of how they got mixed up in wanting the ghost shirt.

“Americana” gets a little awkward when it tries to bludgeon viewers over the head with messaging about anti-colonialism and pro-feminism. Cal’s impersonation of Sitting Bull is meant to be a symbol of misguided cultural appropriation, but sometimes the tone of Cal’s scenes are a little too preachy to drive the message home with the intended satirical edge that they need. Similarly, there’s a shootout scene where a man scoffs at the idea of a woman using a gun. And as soon as he makes this derogatory remark, you know what’s going to happen to him.

“Americana” isn’t as witty or funny as it could have been. Some of the characters could have been written better. But if viewers are patient enough to watch the movie past the halfway mark, the story improves and becomes more intriguing. The ending of “Americana” might seem like a tonal mismatch, but it should be satisfying for anyone who’s looking for some humanity amid the carnage and the chaos.

Lionsgate released “Americana” in U.S. cinemas on August 15, 2025. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on September 16, 2025. “Americana” will be released on Blu-ray and DVD on October 28, 2025.

Review: ‘Everything’s Going to Be Great,’ starring Allison Janney, Benjamin Evan Ainsworth, Bryan Cranston, Jack Champion and Chris Cooper

July 12, 2025

by Carla Hay

“Everything’s Going to Be Great”

Directed by Jon S. Baird

Culture Representation: Taking place from 1989 to 1990, in Ohio, New Jersey, and Kansas, the comedy/drama film “Everything’s Going to Be Great” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few black people and on Asian person) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A husband and a wife, who have opposite personalities and work as managers of regional performing arts theaters, juggle conflicts in their marriage and conflicts between their two teenage sons, who also have opposite personalities.

Culture Audience: “Everything’s Going to Be Great” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of stars Allison Janney and Bryan Cranston and sometimes-quirky stories about people who love musical theater.

Chris Cooper and Allison Janney in “Everything’s Going to Be Great” (Photo by Peter H. Stranks/Lionsgate)

“Everything’s Going to Be Great” sometimes struggles with balancing comedy and drama in a story about an eccentric family of regional theater managers. However, the principal cast performances enliven an occasionally trite and wandering narrative. The family dynamics in the movie are consistently believable.

Directed by Jon S. Baird and written by Steven Rogers, “Everything’s Going to Be Great” had its world premiere at the 2025 Tribeca Festival. The movie takes place from 1989 to 1990, in Ohio, New Jersey, and Kansas. “Everything’s Going to Be Great” was actually filmed in the Canadian province of Ontario.

In the beginning of “Everything’s Going to Be Great,” it’s the spring of 1989 in Akron, Ohio. Buddy Smart (played by Bryan Cranston) is in a middle-school principal’s office with his 14-year-old son Lester “Les” Smart (played by Benjamin Evan Ainsworth) and Principal Franklin (played by Cady Huffman) in a meeting to discuss some disciplinary issues about Les at this school. Les is a school misfit who has made some people uncomfortable.

As Principal Franklin explains to Buddy, during a physical education class that was discussing angina during a CPR training session, Les blurted out that “Vaginas make his flesh creep,” says the principal. In Les’ history class, he was assigned a one-page report on the Manifest Destiny. Instead, he turned in a nine-page musical titled “Les Wiz,” set during the French Revolution and inspired by “Les Misérables” and “The Wizard of Oz.”

Buddy scoffs at these complaints and doesn’t think that they’re serious enough for the school principal to have this meeting. “Isn’t nine pages better than one?” Buddy somewhat sarcastically asks Principal Franklin. The principal asks Les to leave the room so that she can talk to Buddy privately.

Principal Franklin tells Buddy that he has to consider the possibility that Les is gay. She says it in a tone as if being gay is something to be ashamed of or is a mental health problem. Buddy says defiantly, “In theater, we don’t care about people’s race or sexuality. [We care] only if they are talented.” Principal Franklin tries to finish the sentence by saying the word “Christian” when Buddy says “talented.”

In the hallway, outside the principal’s office, Les imagines that he sees the late playwright/composer Noël Coward (played by Mark Caven) and is having a conversation with him. Les has these types of short imaginary conversations with different deceased celebrity entertainers throughout the movie, including actress Ruth Gordon (played by Chick Reid), actress Tallulah Bankhead (played by Laura Benanti) and playwright/novelist William Inge (played by David MacLean). It’s a fairly cute gimmick that is sometimes distracting in this movie.

After the meeting with the school principal ends, Les complains to Buddy, “I hate this school. No one gets me.” Buddy tells Les, “You’re a weirdo. It’s not their fault.” Buddy also says that when he was Les’ age, he was an actor too and didn’t fit in at his school either. Buddy assures Les that Les will find “his people” when he goes to high school.

How much of a musical fanatic is Les? During live performances at the theaters that his parents manage, Les frequently walks on stage uninvited and unannounced and joins the cast in performing. An early scene in the movie shows Les doing this type of “stage crashing” during a performance of “Fiddler on the Roof.” These interruptions annoy the cast, crew and Les’ mother, but Buddy is more tolerant because he understands Les’ enthusiasm.

Things in the Smart family household are also fraught with tension because Buddy and his wife Macy Smart (played by Allison Janney) are financially struggling and are having many arguments about it. Although the spouses share a love of musical theater, they have opposite personalities. Buddy is an optimist who believes that their problems will eventually be solved. Macy is a pessimist who has become jaded and bitter that they haven’t been able to achieve their dream of producing Broadway musicals.

Buddy and Macy are also fundamentally different when it comes to religion. Buddy is an atheist or agnostic, while Macy is a devoutly religious Christian. Conversations in the movie give indications why Buddy is not religious. It’s mentioned that Buddy’s single mother abandoned him when he was 4 years old, and he was raised by two aunts who were religious fanatics and very cruel to Buddy.

Buddy and Macy have another son—16-year-old Derrick (played by Jack Champion)—who is the opposite of Les. Derrick is a popular football player with a steady girlfriend at his high school, he hates musical theater, and he’s very heterosexual. When an opportunity comes up for the Buddy and Macy to relocate to New Jersey to manage the regional Barn Theater, Derrick is the only one in the family who doesn’t want to move from where they live in Ohio. “All I want is to play football and lose my virginity,” Derrick says.

This job opportunity comes with risks and challenges. It’s a temporary job where the Barn Theater’s owner Ed Monroe (played by Michael Hanrahan) has hired them for the summer to see if Buddy and Macy can boost the theater’s dwindling business. If Buddy and Macy and turn around the theater’s fortune for the better, the spouses will be hired on a permanent basis and get the opportunity to manage his Players Theater in Milwaukee.

Buddy is the most enthusiastic person in the family about this new job offer, but Macy is worried and isn’t easily convinced that it’s is a good idea. For starters, they can’t afford a place to live in New Jersey. And if they don’t get hired on a permanent basis, they’ll be financially ruined.

After some back-and-forth arguing between the spouses, Macy agrees to this relocation. Les is obviously excited about the move because he doesn’t like his life in Akron. In New Jersey, the Smart family ends up illegally squatting in a house. Macy found out through a real-estate connection that the house’s owners will be away for a while and don’t have anyone checking up on the house.

“Everything’s Going to Be Great” shows what happens when the Smart family unexpectedly has to move in with Macy’s farmer brother Walter (played by Chris Cooper) in Macy’s home state of Kansas. The movie takes a much more serious tone during the scenes where the family is in Kansas, and the focus shifts to how Les and Derrick adjust to life at their Kansas high school. Simon Rex has a small but pivotal role as a Barn Theater actor named Kyle.

“Everything’s Going to Be Great” has many of its best-acted scenes with Cranston as Buddy, an unconventional dreamer who is a loving parent but who is often so consumed with his passion for musical theater, it’s taken a toll on his marriage. Whether Buddy is playing bagpipes with Les on a front lawn or encouraging Les’ musical aspirations, it’s a great depiction of unconditional parental love. Janney gives a realistically acerbic performance a Macy, who has become resentful that her life did not turn out the way that she expected and who has insecurities about her physical appearance.

Ainsworth’s portrayal of Les is impressive, even though the movie seems like it can’t decide between telling the story from Les’ perspective or the perspective of his parents. Les’ imaginary conversations with some of his dead idols sometimes seem out-of-place and make him look like a “twee fantasy” kid when there could have been a better exploration of his creative side. There’s that brief mention in the beginning of the movie that he wrote a “Les Wiz” musical, but then the movie doesn’t show any more indications that Les has an artistic side to him, other than being an actor. Any flaws in “Everything’s Going to Be Great” are outweighed by the movie’s mostly capable and engaging way of depicting a family that you can easily imagine as being inspired by people who existed in real life.

Lionsgate released “Everything’s Going to be Great” in U.S. cinemas on June 20, 2025. The movie was released on digital and VOD on July 11, 2025.

Review: ‘Mack & Rita,’ starring Diane Keaton, Taylour Paige and Elizabeth Lail

August 12, 2022

by Carla Hay

“Mack & Rita”

Directed by Katie Aselton

Culture Representation: Taking place in the California cities of Los Angeles and Palm Springs, the comedy film “Mack & Rita” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans, Asians and Latin people) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A 30-year-old woman, who feels older than most of her peers, wishes that she were just like her beloved and now-deceased grandmother, and she’s shocked when her wish comes true, and she physically becomes a woman in her 70s.

Culture Audience: “Mack & Rita” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of star Diane Keaton and don’t mind seeing terrible movies that insult viewers’ intelligence and make the cast members look like idiots.

Taylour Paige in “Mack & Rita” (Photo courtesy of Gravitas Premiere)

Diane Keaton, please do not allow anyone to talk you into doing embarrassing garbage movies like “Mack & Rita” ever again. If anyone has the misfortune of watching this pathetic excuse for a comedy film, be warned that it is less likely to make you laugh and more likely to make you sad and maybe a little angry that this is the type of moronic junk that Oscar-winning acting legend Keaton has been reduced to doing. And to make matters worse, Keaton is one of the producers of “Mack & Rita,” so she sunk some of her own money into helping make this atrocious flop.

“Mack & Rita” is supposed to be a female empowerment film. It’s supposed to be a comedy film that’s funny. But just because a woman (Katie Aselton) directed “Mack & Rita,” and just because a woman (Madeline Walter) co-wrote the screenplay doesn’t automatically make this train wreck any good. (Walter wrote the “Mack & Rita” screenplay with Paul Welsh.) In fact, “Mack & Rita” is such an abomination that makes women in the movie look so flaky and ditsy, it’s the opposite of a female empowerment film.

“Mack & Rita” is the third feature film directed by Aselton, who is probably best known to movie audiences as an actress in movies and TV. Her credits as an actress include supporting roles in movies such as 2019’s “Bombshell” and 2018’s “Book Club.” She previously directed and starred in the 2013 horror flick “Black Rock,” an independent film (written by her husband, Mark Duplass) that got mixed reviews. Aselton’s feature-film directorial debut was 2010’s “The Freebie,” a mediocre and lightweight comedy that she wrote. Aselton and Dax Shepard co-starred in “The Freebie” as a married couple allowing each other one night of infidelity. In other words, Aselton has been on plenty of film sets to know better than to dump the trashy “Mack & Rita” into the world.

Comedies about body switches or body transformations need to have cast members with authentic-looking chemistry, in order to make the movies work well. On top of that, even if the story involves sci-fi or fantasy, at least some part of it has to be believable, starting with the way that the characters react to this body change. Unfortunately, “Mack & Rita” fails in every bare minimum of these requirements.

“Mack and Rita” also does a lot of unappealing perpetuating of negative stereotypes of women over the age of 70, by making it look like women in this age group have sex appeal that shrivels up like wrinkled skin. Except for the character played by Keaton, all of the senior citizen women who are supporting characters in “Mack & Rita” just sit around, guzzle wine, and gossip about other people’s love lives, but they don’t have love lives of their own. And when the character played by Keaton does have some romance, it’s played for cringeworthy laughs because (gasp!) she kisses a man who’s young enough to be her son.

“Mack & Rita” has an odd mix of talented cast members and not-so-talented cast members that make their scenes together very hard to watch. The opening scene of the movie shows a quick montage flashback of lead character Mackenzie “Mack” Martin as a 9-year-old (played by Molly Duplass, daughter of Aselton and Mark Duplass) being raised by her sassy grandmother, who’s only given the name Grammie Martin (played by Catherine Carlen) in the movie. It’s explained later that Mack’s parents are deceased. Mack was very close to Grammie Martin, who died sometime when Mack became an adult. Mack admired her grandmother’s confidence and still wishes that she could be more like her.

Mack has now grown up to be a 30-year-old bachelorette writer (played by Elizabeth Lail) living in a Los Angeles apartment building with her dog Cheese. Her only book so far (a collection of personal essays about her grandmother) was a modest hit, but Mack hasn’t had much luck getting a publishing deal for her second book. In the meantime, Mack’s abrasive and snobby agent Stephanie (played by Patti Harrison) has been pushing Mack to become a social media influencer who gets paid for endorsing products and services. Stephanie sneers to Mack in a phone conversation: “Remember, if you’re not getting paid for something, it’s a hobby. And hobbies are disgusting.”

The adult Mack explains in a voiceover: “I grew up always feeling like I was an older woman trapped in the body of a little girl. I think that’s why I was so found of the term ‘old gal.” I was raised by my grandma, who was the coolest ‘old gal’ I ever knew. She would say, ‘Well, that’s because I’m old. I’ve got less time to live, so I’ve got less flips to give.” Get used to the cringeworthy talk in “Mack & Rita,” because this horrible movie is full of it.

Mack continues in her voiceover: “All I wanted was to be like Grammie Martin, but like any kid, I had to fit in. Over the years, I had to hide what I thought was cool. And you know what? It worked pretty well … I did my darndest to keep my inner old gal to myself.”

The movie then rushes through an explanation that Mack will soon be going to Palm Springs for the weekend to attend the bachelorette party of her best friend Carla (played by Taylour Paige), in a house lent to them by a friend of Carla’s mother Sharon (played by Loretta Devine). Before she leaves for her trip, Mack meets with her bachelor next-door neighbor Jack (played by Dustin Milligan), a private wealth manager who’s also 30 years old. Jack has agreed to be the dogsitter for Cheese while Mack is away for the weekend in Palm Springs. (As soon as you see Jack on screen, it’s obvious he will be Mack’s love interest.)

Mack and Jack exchange some awkward small talk because they’re both attracted to each other but don’t want to come right out and say it. He asks her if she would like to go skateboarding with him sometime. Mack politely declines. “Mack & Rita” tells no details about Mack’s previous dating experiences, but the movie repeatedly implies that because Mack wants to be just like her grandmother, she thinks that means she has to live life like the worst stereotype of a boring old lady.

One of the most annoying things about “Mack & Rita” is that it makes people who are supposed to be in their 30s act like they have the emotional maturity of teenagers who are still in high school. There’s Jack and his semi-obsession with skateboarding and expecting women who date him to be interested in skateboarding too. And later, when Mack meets up with Carla and their two airhead bachelorette friends Sunita (played by Aimee Carrero) and Molly (played by Lauren Beveridge), this arrested development in emotional maturity is also on full display.

Mack tells Carla, Sunita and Molly about turning down Jack’s invitation for a skateboarding date. Mack says that this rejection is because she’s afraid that Jack could be a Lothario. It’s an example of Mack being paranoid about dating, because Jack has not shown any indication that he’s a jerk or a creep.

Sunita and Molly then repeatedly ask Mack what a Lothario is. Mack has trouble explaining it to them until she uses the word “player.” Apparently, the “Mack & Rita” filmmakers want people to equate “vocabulary intelligence” with “mentality of a boring old lady,” and that the average 30-year-old woman can’t possibly know what the word Lothario means.

Sunita and Molly are self-absorbed, yammering characters whose personalities are indistinguishable from one another. Molly and Sunita only seem to care about what they see and post about themselves on social media. Carla is portrayed as a loyal and accepting friend who tries to give Mack more confidence and a lot of understanding.

However, Carla’s patience is tested when the “body transformation” happens to Mack, who ends up becoming a popular social media influencer in her new “old woman” body, and Mack becomes an unreliable friend. This information was already revealed in the “Mack & Rita” trailer. You know a movie is bottom-of-the-barrel rubbish when there’s nothing salvagable that can be edited to make the movie’s trailer look interesting.

While the four gal pals are hanging out at a restaurant for lunch, Mack sees two elderly woman dining together at a nearby outdoor cafe. Mack says that she envies how life seems to be so simple for these senior citizens because these old women know who they are and what they want. Mind you, Mack knows nothing about these women or what their conversation is about, so she really has no idea if these women are as happy or as confident as she assumes they are. Mack has a weird fixation on thinking that women of retirement age are supposed to be happier than any other women just because elderly women have lived that long and are old enough to retire. It’s a very misguided and ignorant over-simplication of women.

Mack tells Carla when Mack points out the two elderly women having lunch together: “I want to be like them: just sitting around and falling asleep until someone shakes me awake.” What a condescending and ageist perception of elderly women. “Mack & Rita” repeatedly pounds this negative stereotype that women over the age of 70 are supposed to be boring, and then uses this unflattering perception as a flimsy plot device that’s not only stupid but it’s also offensive. The entire terrible premise of “Mack & Rita” is that any woman over the age of 70 who is not boring is the exception and probably does things that deserve to have people laughing at her because she’s supposed to be “too old” to do those things.

Mack’s body transformation happens as body transformations do in dimwitted and lazy movies: by a force of nature that is never explained in the movie. Mack sees a pop-up tent near the restaurant. The tent is advertising New Age type of services with the slogan “Regress and be blessed” written on a makeshift sign.

Out of curiosity, Mack goes in the tent and finds a spaced-out wannabe guru named Luka (played by Simon Rex, in an awful, hammy performance), who tells her to lie down in a run-down-looking tanning bed and think of any wish that she wants to come true. Mack wishes exactly what you think she wishes: “I want to be Grammie Martin!” Mack also shouts, “I’m a 70-year-old woman trapped in a body of a 30-year-old who just needs a minute to rest!”

Wind gusts suddenly appear in the tanning bed like a mini-tornado. And when Mack emerges from the tanning bed, she’s horrified to see that she now looks like an elderly version of herself (played by Keaton), so the expected hysterical skrieking ensues. Luka suddenly is nowhere to be found to change Mack back into her “normal” self. Luka’s disappearance is just the movie’s way of stretching out the excruciatingly bad scenarios that Mack experiences as the elderly version of herself.

While still adjusting to the shock of her body transformation, Mack shows up at the borrowed house in Palm Springs, where Carla predictably thinks Mack is an intruder. But once Mack proves to Carla that she really is Mack—just trapped in a 70-year-old body—Carla easily accepts everything like it’s not that big of a deal. “Mack & Rita” is so poorly written, the bachelorette party is never shown, and Carla is never seen having a conversation with her groom-to-be (whose name is never mentioned in the movie), even though there’s a plot development involving the wedding rehearsal dinner. The groom is never seen talking and has a brief “blink and you’ll miss it” appearance where he’s seen with Carla in a car.

Expect to see a silly montage of Carla and “elderly” Mack doing various things to try to make Mack look younger, such as going to a rigorous fitness trainer (just an excuse to put Keaton and her stunt double in awkward physical positions) or beauty salons, as if putting on some skin cream will somehow make Mack look younger. And there are the usual pratfalls and “I’m too old for this” clumsiness from “elderly” Mack, because the movie wants to make it hilarious to laugh at elderly people who might have physical limitations. It’s all so witless and tiresome.

In one of the movie’s worst scenes, “elderly” Mack takes Carla’s advice to drink psychedelic mushrooms with some tea. It leads to a very unfunny scenario of Mack hallucinating, with very cheap-looking visual effects used in the movie. Mack’s hallucinations include thinking that her dog is talking to her. Martin Short is the voice of the dog in this scene. It’s a good thing that Short isn’t on camera, thereby sparing him the humiliation of being seen in this horrendous dreck.

And who exactly is the “Rita” in “Mack & Rita”? When “elderly” Mack goes back to her apartment, she lies to Jack and says that she is Mack’s aunt Rita. The lie is that Rita (who lives in Scottsdale, Arizona) and Mack decided to do an apartment exchange while Mack is in Scottsdale for a writer’s retreat. Jack is a little taken by surprise by Rita, but because he doesn’t know Mack and her family very well, he easily believes this lie.

It’s the same lie that’s told to Carla’s outspoken and meddling mother Sharon and Sharon’s three nosy best friends: cranky Betty (played by Lois Smith), jolly Carol (played by Amy Hill) and sarcastic Angela (played by Wendie Malick), who are all the wine-guzzling, gossipy old lady stereotypes that make “Mack & Rita” such a trite and insulting portrayal of older women. Betty is the one who owns the house in Palm Springs. Sharon is an openly queer woman who divorced her husband (Carla’s father), and then married a woman, who is now deceased. The only reason this information about Sharon’s love life is in the movie is to make Sharon a negative stereotype of an elderly woman who’s bitter about not currently having a love partner.

The younger female characters in the movie aren’t much better when it comes to shallow clichés, except for Carla, who is the only one who comes across as having a believable personality and a life that doesn’t revolve around envying other people or gossiping about them. (Paige, who’s stuck in the thankless role as Carla, sometimes looks like she knows she’s in a bad movie, but perhaps she needed the money.) Mack as a 30-year-old is just insufferably ignorant, and it doesn’t help that Lail gives the worst performance in the cast. Luckily, the 30-year-old Mack doesn’t have much screen time, compared to 70-year-old Mack/Rita whose depiction is appalling enough.

Far from making the “elderly” Mack/Rita look stylish, the substandard costume design for the “elderly” Mack/Rita consists of mostly ill-fitting (usually too large) embarrassments. Who in their right mind thinks anyone looks good in an oversized plaid blazer paired with an oversized polka dot A-line skirt? But there “elderly” Mack/Rita is, wearing one of these many clownish-looking outfits in “Mack & Rita.”

Everything about “Mack & Rita” looks like an outdated sitcom that was rejected decades ago. It’s also a fake feminist film. If Mack gets a “happy ending” (her romance with Jack; finding Luka to turn her back to her “normal” self), it’s all dependent on getting a man to like her. Mack shows no real independence or personal growth. The romance in this movie is as dull as dull can be.

“Mack & Rita” is just a series of abysmal slapstick scenes and forced, terrible scenarios where people are supposed to laugh at the sight of a woman in her 70s doing things that younger people usually do—and she gets mocked for it in one way or another. Making an entire movie about putting an elderly woman in humiliating situations is not amusing. It’s misogynistic. Movie audiences and someone with Keaton’s caliber of talent deserve so much better.

Gravitas Premiere released “Mack & Rita” in U.S. cinemas on August 12, 2022.

Review: ‘Red Rocket,’ starring Simon Rex, Bree Elrod and Suzanna Son

December 27, 2021

by Carla Hay

“Red Rocket”

Directed by Sean Baker

Culture Representation: Taking place in 2016 in Texas City, Texas, the comedy/drama film “Red Rocket” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some African Americans and one Asian) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A washed-up and financially broke porn actor goes back to his Texas hometown, where he tries to hustle up enough money to leave town and go back to California, with the hope of making a comeback in the adult entertainment industry.

Culture Audience: “Red Rocket” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of filmmaker Sean Baker and tragicomic stories about people with unsavory lifestyles.

Simon Rex and Bree Elrod in “Red Rocket” (Photo courtesy of A24)

“Red Rocket” continues writer/director/producer Sean Baker’s pattern of doing raw and restless films about people who live on the fringes of American society. Baker’s movies aren’t appealing to everyone, but his biggest strengths as a filmmaker are in creating very memorable characters and making smart casting decisions. Simon Rex (an actor/rapper who’s also a former MTV VJ) is an inspired choice to play a destitute and desperate former porn actor who goes back to his Texas hometown, with the intent to get enough money to go back to California, so he can jumpstart his career in adult entertainment. Rex has his own real-life history with doing porn, since it’s not a secret that he did solo/masturbation porn videos before he became famous on MTV in the mid-1990s.

In “Red Rocket” (which Baker co-wrote with Chris Bergoch), Rex gives a “go for broke” performance, even though many viewers might grow to dislike or get irritated by his self-centered and disreputable Mikey Saber character, a drifter in his mid-40s, who always seems to be on the hustle for something that benefits himself. Baker doesn’t make movies where audiences are supposed to expect that the protagonist will go through some kind of redemption. Instead, his movies are about how the main character gets stuck in a rut and often makes things worse through a series of misguided shenanigans.

That’s exactly what goes on with Mikey, who has suddenly moved back to his working-class hometown of Texas City, Texas, after years of living in California and working as a porn actor for the past 17 years. It would be overstating Mikey’s status in the adult entertainment industry by describing him as a “porn star,” even though he would like to think that he’s a “porn star.” Mikey might be somewhat well-known to porn aficionados, but he’s not famous enough to get automatic invitations every year to the Adult Video News (AVN) Awards, which are the Oscars of porn movies.

Whatever money he made as a porn actor is long gone, because by the time Mikey moves back to Texas City (the movie takes place in 2016), he’s broke and looking to make some quick cash, even if it’s through illegal means. The first clue that Mikey gets himself into violent trouble is that he has bruises on his face, as if he recently got into a fight. Mikey has some unfinished business that he left behind in Texas City when he moved to California, but now he has to face some realities that he’s been trying to avoid. Just like a true hustler, he tries to turn things around to his advantage.

The biggest unfinished business that Mikey has in Texas City is that he’s still legally married to his estranged wife Lexi (played by Bree Elrod), who wants to get back together with him. Even if Mikey could afford to go through with the divorce, Lexi doesn’t really want to get divorced. Mikey and Lexi used to do porn together, but Lexi is no longer in the adult entertainment industry, and she doesn’t want to go back to it.

When homeless Mikey shows up unannounced at Lexi’s house, she’s initially irritated with him, but she’s generous enough to give him a place to stay. Not much is said about Mikey’s biological family members, but it’s implied that he’s an only child. It’s briefly mentioned that his single mother is in a nursing home.

Lexi lives with her mother Lily, nicknamed Lil (played by Brenda Deiss), and it’s later revealed that they both smoke heroin or another opioid on a regular basis. Mikey doesn’t really approve of this drug use, but he’s not in a position to be preachy about illegal drug activities. He smokes weed, and he ends up doing some small-time drug dealing (mostly marijuana) for a local gang involved in drug trafficking.

Mikey has done this work before in Texas City, so he asks for his old job back from the dealer in charge: a gang maven named Leondria (played by Judy Hill), who leads a group of mostly young men, but she has her young adult daughter June (played by Brittney Rodriguez) working as the gang lookout and enforcer. It’s quite problematic that Baker chose to make the only African Americans in “Red Rocket” into gangsters and drug dealers, which are unimaginative and negative stereotypes. And for a movie that takes place in Texas, which has a large Hispanic/Latino population, it’s also appalling how there’s no Hispanic/Latino representation (in terms of speaking roles) in “Red Rocket.”

When Mikey first shows up at Lexi’s place, he begs to take a shower. “I just need a place to crash,” Mikey pleads. Soon enough, he tells Lexi that he doesn’t just need a place to crash for a few days. He needs to stay for at least 180 days (or six months), which is the legal minimum requirement to establish residency in Texas.

Why does Mikey want to establish residency in Texas? He wants to collect unemployment benefits and other government benefits from the state of Texas. Until that happens, Mikey turns to drug dealing for money.

Mikey and Lexi start having sex again. For Mikey, it’s convenient sex to keep Lexi happy and for his own physical pleasure. For Lexi, it’s reunion sex, which she thinks is Mikey’s way of showing that he still loves her and wants to get back together with her. For any adult who’s watching this movie, it’s sex that will obviously not end well for someone in this movie, because someone will get emotionally hurt in the end.

And sure enough, Mikey starts to lose interest in Lexi once he meets a nubile 17-year-old named Strawberry (played by Suzanna Son), who works behind the counter of a donut shop. It’s lust at first sight for Mikey, who sees Strawberry (yes, that’s her real name) as his meal ticket out of Texas City because he wants her to do porn with him and move with him to California when he has enough money. In Texas, the minimum legal age of consent to have sex is 17, but Strawberry will soon turn 18, the minimum legal age to do porn. Slowly but surely, Mikey charms and seduces his way into Strawberry’s life. And he finds out that Strawberry, who has a kind and open heart, is not as innocent as she looks.

Lexi has another reason why she wants Mikey back in her life. She has an underage son named Eric from a previous relationship. Lexi lost custody of Eric (it’s easy to see why), and she wants to convince Child Protective Services that she’s now living a stable life as a happily married woman. Lexi puts pressure on Mikey to give their marriage another chance, but he won’t fully commit to it.

At the same time, Mikey doesn’t want to alienate Lexi too much because she’s the only person who’s giving him a place to live in Texas City. Therefore, when Mikey and Strawberry start dating and having sex, Mikey thinks it’s best to hide this information from Lexi, because he knows that she’ll get jealous and possibly kick him out of the house. Lexi has a mean-spirited temper: It’s not unusual for her to throw things during an argument at the person who’s making her angry.

“Red Rocket” has a rambling tone that reflects Mikey’s haphazard life. Unfortunately, even though the cast members’ performances are believable, the movie tends to be repetitive in showing any of these three things: arguments between Mikey and Lexi; Mikey’s tensions with the gang members/drug dealers he’s doing business with while Mikey is tempted to steal some of their money; and Mikey’s manipulation of Strawberry, who is still in high school. Strawberry lives with her single mother (who’s not seen in the movie) and seems to have a fairly stable home life, but she’s bored with her dead-end job and can’t wait to get out of Texas City.

A problematic part of “Red Rocket” is how it has a tendency to present Mikey as a loveable bad boy, when he’s just a low-life sleaze (and not a very smart one), through and through. There’s really no good excuse for why a middle-aged person would want to persuade a barely legal teenager to start doing porn. Mikey doesn’t have much to lose by doing porn, but a teenager who hasn’t really found an identity yet and might be too emotionally immature to make this decision has a lot to lose by doing porn.

Mikey doesn’t care about the consequences for Strawberry though. He’s only thinking about how much money he can make if they do porn together. If anything, “Red Rocket” has some realism in showing how young women are easily manipulated by sexual predators to do this kind of sex work. Mikey effusively compliments Strawberry by telling her how beautiful and sexy she is. He also sells her on the idea that they can live a glamorous life in California, by getting paid for having sex on camera.

It’s obvious that Strawberry still has a lot to learn about life, because she falls for Mikey’s big talk, but she’s blind to the big picture. She seems to have some awareness of how doing porn will affect her, when she says, “I’m about to have a very awkward senior year. I’m not about to have a very awkward life.” But it’s almost like she’s in denial about how doing porn could really affect the rest of her life, in terms of job opportunities, what kinds of lovers might or might not accept her porn activities, and how her involvement with porn could affect any children she might have in the future.

More experienced or more emotionally mature people would be able to see right through Mikey’s scammer ways. After all, Mikey is pretending to be a big shot porn star, when in reality, he’s essentially homeless and trying to use an inexperienced teenager to peddle her flesh for his own financial gain. How much of a loser do you have to be to think this scummy exploitation is cool?

“Red Rocket” doesn’t really condone or condemn Mikey’s sleaziness, but Baker expects audiences to show a certain type of fascination with Mikey, by making an entire movie about this type of sexual predator. The movie puts an almost comical spin on the sordid antics of Mikey, by giving the movie a lightweight pop tune as its theme song: *NSYNC’s 2000 hit “Bye Bye Bye.” Audiences are supposed to see the irony in contrasting a song from a polished boy band with the very dirty and chaotic life of Mikey.

“Bye Bye Bye” is the first song heard blaring on the movie’s soundtrack when Mikey is shown on a bus on his way back to Texas City. The song is also heard in various forms in other parts of the movie, such as when Strawberry does a compelling, stripped-down version of the song while playing piano. Making “Bye Bye Bye” the theme song to “Red Rocket” is essentially a nod to the early 2000s, at the beginning of Mikey’s porn career, so the song probably reminds him of his youth. (Rex was no longer a VJ on MTV by the time *NYSNC hit it big.)

Physically, Mikey is still in great shape, compared to other men in his age group. But the rest of his life is a mess. (Viewers will see all of Mikey’s physique in a full-frontal nude scene that Rex does toward the end of the movie.) Baker invites audiences to laugh at Mikey, as this fast-talking hustler digs himself further into a self-destructive hole. But it’s not the kind of laughter that should make people feel good because it’s about laughing at pathetic people who are caught in a cesspool of degradation, often of their own doing.

What makes “Red Rocket” worth watching is to see how Strawberry navigates her relationship with Mikey. As Strawberry, Son gives an interesting performance that’s open to interpretation. Strawberry is grounded, open-minded and independent, yet she’s also unsophisticated, insecure about her place in the world, and susceptible to Mikey’s manipulations. Therefore, viewers might see her as a teenager who’s capable of growing up fast and handling herself well, or as teenager who could get easily mixed up in situations that she might end up regretting.

Truth be told, “Red Rocket” would have been a more compelling movie to a lot of people if it had been told from Strawberry’s perspective. She’s the only character in the movie who doesn’t veer into caricature territory. Lexi becomes a screaming shrew. The gangsters/drug dealers are depicted in a very predictable way. Other characters, such as Mikey’s hometown friend Lonnie (played by Ethan Darbone), aren’t in the movie long enough to have much of a personality or an impact on the story. Lonnie is essentially a sounding board for Mikey’s bragging about his sexual exploits.

There are so many movies already about egotistical jerks who are at the center of the story. “Red Rocket” just happens to have better acting than most of these movies. Baker seems enamored with doing films about people who exist on the seedy side of life. Let’s hope his future movies are centered on a more unique protoganist than the type of overrated toxic male who doesn’t earn filmmakers’ efforts to make viewers think that he’s just “misunderstood.”

A24 released “Red Rocket” in select U.S. cinemas on December 10, 2021.