In Sean Baker’s anticipated follow-up to The Florida Project, he teams up with unlikely yet ultimate leading man Simon Rex in A24’s Red Rocket. Rex plays Mikey, a washed-up and aged-out adult film star who makes the shameful return home to Texas City from Los Angeles. With nothing but the faded grey wifebeater on his back, he shows up on his ex Lexie’s (Bree Elrod) doorstep begging for somewhere to stay. She threatens to call the cops, but he smooth-talks his way inside, promising Lexie and her mom, Lil (Brenda Deiss), rent money and help around the house.
With no skill other than winning the AVN Award for Best Oral, Mikey is unable to land a job. He falls back on his adolescent, pre-porn career, selling weed (which is still criminalized in Texas). He rolls dozens of joints with American flag papers while he, Lexie, and Lil watch the 2016 election coverage—making this a period piece, technically. After he meets his quota and then some, Mikey takes the ladies out for a treat to the Donut Hole where he comes across young Strawberry (Suzanna Son), a Brandy Melville-clad seventeen-year-old with ginger hair, freckled cheeks and matching rouged lips and cheeks. Mikey is entranced by her electric, hyper-girly, youthful (because she’s barely legal) spirit and decides to shift all his time and energy into wooing her— and it works.
Mikey is a flawed protagonist, but his relentless dedication to being a lowlife oddly makes viewers root for him. A majority of the runtime focuses on his elusive character transformation. Audiences expect his metamorphosis— a failed man seeking redemption in his hometown, a familiar trope— but Mikey’s journey keeps us guessing. His actions, especially his pursuit of Strawberry, who is conveniently just the age of consent in Texas, reveal that this man is incapable of atonement. The real heroes journey lies within Lexie the exie. At first she puts up with his grifting, his unpredictable rage, his unreliability— because at least she has Mikey back. The familiarity is comforting and she succumbs to Mikey’s charisma, false promises, and of course to the sex (it becomes apparent why when Rex goes full-frontal). She allows him back into her fragile yet steel-coated heart, and in the end, gets totally played by him.
The conversation about Red Rocket will largely surround Simon Rex’s career-defining performance. He deserves a Best Actor nod for his portrayal of Mikey, as well as a retroactive Oscar for Scary Movie 3. But honestly, it’s Bree Elrod’s Lexie that steals the screen— every facial expression, flick of her cigarette, high-pitched scream is absolutely perfect. A performance so fine-tuned, and so singular, her small yet pivotal role is what really made the film special. Lexie’s transformation from cold-hearted, to victim, to hero, is what the film desperately needed after being failed by its protagonist.
There’s not a lot to gripe about in Red Rocket. One could take the time to discuss why Baker felt the need to place the film leading up to the 2016 U.S. election and why those reasons lack any subtlety, but it’s honestly not worth the conversation. The film takes place in a slightly more ignorant reality that glides over the deep issues, much like Mikey does. Considering the movie was written, shot, and released all in the time of COVID, it’s a significant artistic achievement for independent film. The cinematography perfectly embodies the margins of society that it captures; in this case, the drab refinery town of Texas City. Every actor, most of whom were street-cast aside from the three leads, brings a tangible realness and so much laughter to the movie. Everything Baker has done right in his past films he does here, plus adding a new grin-worthy liveliness that makes Red Rocket another beautiful gem in the A24 library.
*originally published on flipscreened.com on 10/22/2021*