Jonah Hill’s career has been nothing if not dynamic. In 2007, he broke onto the scene with “Superbad,” a high-school screwball comedy that’s still mentioned as the gold-standard for the genre post-2000. Hill’s performance as the boisterous, awkward and overweight Seth would prove both a blessing and a curse, launching him to stardom but pigeonholing him as “The Fat Guy” in Hollywood. “I became famous in my late teens and then spent most of my young adult life listening to people say that I was fat and gross and unattractive,” Hill writes in an A24 program given to audiences at “Mid90s” early screenings. “It’s only in the last four years, writing and directing my movie “Mid90s,” that I’ve started to understand how much that hurt and got into my head.” Clearly, “Mid90s” was a watershed moment for Hill, a creative expression of self- discovery both as a child and again as a young adult artist. This is unequivocally the film’s greatest strength; from the opening credits to the final shot, it’s clear that Hill has poured his soul into this piece. The film tells the story of Stevie (Sunny Suljic, “The Killing of a Sacred Deer”), a 13-year- old who finds an escape from his turbulent home life with a group of high school skateboarders. As the guys grow closer, each reveals the unique struggles and triumphs of their day-to- day lives. While it certainly has some engaging character moments, “Mid90s” works best as a film that’s less about any one character and more about telling the story of an era and a niche culture within it. Hill, both a hip hop and skating fanatic, brings awe-inspiring meticulousness to the world he depicts, evoking details too small, too personal to be anything but autobiographical. Nevertheless, these moments never fall short of relatability, and it’s that ability to relate the trials and tribulations of a small community to the collective childhoods of a national audience. I’ve never owned a skateboard, and I was born in the tail end of the ’90s, and yet Stevie’s life — his rituals, his ‘Mid90s’ charms despite hiccups MAX MICHALSKY Daily Arts Writer FILM REVIEW A24 “Mid90s” A24 State Theatre ARTIST PROFILE enthusiasm, his wide-eyed awe at his role models — felt at once uncanny and familiar. This ability to transport the viewer is Hill’s crowning achievement, and the film is at its best when it focuses more on this labor-of-love nostalgia and less on dramatic tension. Unfortunately, the story that accompanies this is filled with ups and downs. By the film’s conclusion, the only character arc that feels as if it’s truly been completed is the subplot about Stevie and his abusive older brother Ian (Lucas Hedges, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”). Na-Kel Smith brings some heart to the film as Ray, a seemingly aloof but kind-hearted cool guy, and offers a handful of poignant moments as the group’s resident philosopher-type. In the end, though, the film bites off more than it can chew in its scant 84-minute runtime and at least half of its many subplots stumble to conclusions that feel more like a shrug. And we need to talk about that scene. If you’ve seen the film, you probably know the one I’m referring to, but if not, be warned: Slight spoilers ahead. There’s a sequence about halfway through the movie where the guys bring Stevie to a party. On the bus ride there, some of the guys pop adderall and Stevie, wanting to fit in, does the same. At the party, Stevie drinks an entire bottle of malt liquor and smokes weed with his friends. Now a veritable cocktail of substances, he’s approached by Estee (Alexa Demie, “Brigsby Bear”), a high school girl who’s presumably 17 like the rest of the crew. Their conversation turns to flirting which turns to Estee leading Stevie to a bedroom, and, well, let’s just say it doesn’t stop there. Let’s not mince words — this is predatory. Estee is only four years older than Stevie, but make no mistake: She’s a grown woman, and his voice hasn’t dropped yet. If that weren’t bad enough, he’s so drugged up that he can’t possibly consent to what is happening. So why does the film portray this hookup as a victory and then never address it again? There’s really no good answer, and were gender-roles reversed here (an older, sober guy hooking up with a wasted prepubescent girl) this scene would be sparking outrage. It’s not inherently wrong to portray these types of encounters in cinema, but to do so with such a brazen “high-five bro!” attitude is a head-scratching lapse of judgement from a filmmaker who has otherwise proven himself to be incredibly savvy and in-touch. Unfortunately, these thoughts lingered with me for the remainder of the film’s runtime. While far from perfect and, at brief moments, concerningly ignorant in its messaging, “Mid90s” should serve as a decent addition to the ever- growing A24 “coming of age” lineup. What it does well it does really well, and what it does poorly, well, you know. Nevertheless, the experience remains a net-positive, and if nothing else serves as a promising beginning for Hill’s directing career. Much like the era it portrays, “Mid90s” has some good times and some not- so-good times, but ultimately carries enough charm and heart to be worth it in the end. A24 The cast of ‘Mid90s’ on making it as hooligans This past Thursday afternoon I had the chance to call into a college conference call with Sunny Suljic, Olan Prenatt, Ryder Mclaughlin and Gio Galacia, four of the five members of the cast of Jonah Hill and A24 Entertainment’s latest hit movie “Mid90s.” Although this was the first big screen appearance for all except Suljic, the group has actually been in the limelight for a number of years now, at least in Los Angeles, for their popular skating, clothing and cinema collective called Illegal Civilization (Illegal Civ). Friends and collaborators with big-name musicians like Tyler, The Creator, Frank Ocean and Vince Staples, the group has made several tours around the globe as a result of their endeavors. Unaware of all of this going into the movie, however, I went into State Theatre’s free early screening of the film last Wednesday fairly free of expectation, other than that the name “Mid90s” sounded to me like another “Dazed and Confused” or “Kids.” Walking in a few minutes late, I entered to a would-you- rather conversation onscreen about having sex with your mom or your dad. The group of five friends were sitting on the couches of the skate shop, the workplace-turned-home for the crew. While you’d expect to be annoyed by this conversation, it immediately gives us insight into the sarcastic, carefree and light-hearted nature of the group. Though their characters use certain homophobic and racist slurs that went unchecked two decades earlier, this kind of unbridled dialogue made the characters so believable that they retained their likeability. I wondered to myself later that night while discovering a treasure trove of Illegal Civ videos whether Jonah Hill had indeed written everything that ended up being said or whether he had let the group do what they had been doing for years prior in their YouTube film shorts. Thus, given the chance the following day, I asked them what the their working dynamic with Jonah was to get the dialogue right. Sunny answered that they wanted to make sure to get all the slurs right, and they would often work for an hour before each scene talking this over. This wasn’t really what I was looking for, however, so I interjected — “I just … would you guys follow his writing specifically?” To this Sunny expeditiously responded that he had indeed read the script, and that none of it was improvised. Before he could finish, Ryder chimed in that all of the language was put in there for a reason, but before Ryder could finish Sunny interrupted saying: “shut the fu— yo, yo, no. I’m sorry. Continue.” From here, all cohesion in the conversation was lost. Ryder replied: “What the hell?” as all four members of the cast laughed. When the A24 representative tried moving on, Sunny shouted, “Oh shit! I really just fucked up Ryder’s response, I’m sorry.” From here, Gio and Olan randomly quoted the movie, and before I knew it the conversation had descended into the same kind of headassery as many others had in the movie. This hooliganism is just the byproduct of the cast’s closeness both on and off the set. In the movie, skating turns a group of kids from different walks of life into a family. Much the same is true for Illegal Civ. Their videos on YouTube promote self-expression, creativity and diversity through the common calling of skating. The linked video is the buildup to selling out a show of 500 at the Roxy Theater in LA back in early 2017. From the start, the collective’s positive creative energy is contagious. The show, for which they managed to get Compton’s Earl Swavey and Van Nuys’s Slow Hollows, is a celebration of rap, trap and rock and demonstrates how the common bond of music can get otherwise discrete cultural groups dancing together like there’s no tomorrow. If “Mid90s” feels like a shout for the return of ’90s skatepark culture — a time in which cultural barriers were broken down for the sake of a common love — Illegal Civilization is answering that call. Jonah Hill has his cast to thank for making his musings a reality both on and off the big screen. BEN VASSAR Daily Arts Writer ‘Mid90s’ soundtrack isn’t just a period piece copout Movie soundtracks are delicate things. A soundtrack can make a powerful sequence or ruin one. It can enhance a line of dialogue or overpower it. It can flow easily or echo distractingly out-of-place. Soundtracks, depending on the degree of care a filmmaker takes to refine them, can make or break a movie. And for “Mid90s,” the soundtrack is endearing and meticulously composed. Jonah Hill’s (“Maniac”) directorial debut may seem like just a period piece centered around skateboarding culture, but as the soundtrack reveals, it is rather a heartfelt coming-of- age story that says as much about its period setting as it does about Hill himself. If you’re looking for a Best Hits of the Decade Compilation, look elsewhere. The truth is that the soundtrack of “Mid90s” is anything but cookie-cutter. It intentionally strays from the mawkishly overplayed singles from the era and instead aims for a far more personal connection that feels both unique and universal. The tracklist darts effortlessly between genres, traversing Golden Age hip hop, grunge, hardcore punk and — you guessed it — Hungarian folk rock. In particular, “Wave of Mutilation” by the Pixies combines quirky chord changes with ragged, angry vocals, a perfect metaphor for the story’s raging adolescence. These are clearly songs that Hill grew up with and remains close to after years. He elaborated on his thought process for curating the soundtrack on the “The Big Picture,” a podcast by The Ringer. “A large part of wanting to be a filmmaker for me is having music be presented the way that I associate it,” he said. Indeed, the track choices, despite not being the most famous of the era, evoke a specificity in experiences and memories. Perhaps the most endearing detail was the reason for which Hill chose the Nirvana song, “Where Did You Sleep Last Night” to be on the soundtrack. “This (song) has this deep emotional connection to me because it was the first song I learned on guitar,” he admitted. The link one forms to a piece of music strengthens substantially when learning how to play it, and the anecdote is a perfect metaphor for the kind of individualistic attention Hill poured into developing the film’s auditory texture. Another standout from the soundtrack is its final song, “We’ll Let You Know” by Morrissey, which ends the playlist with a grounded sense of maturity. Hill also includes songs from previous decades as the album goes on, such as “Watermelon Man” by the jazz pianist Herbie Hancock. The soundtrack was released as a playlist on Spotify rather than an purchasable album, and the form points to why “Mid90s” is so much more than a period soundtrack. Hill does not want to merely drag listeners back to another decade in time; he wants to interact with us in a distinctly modern form. The unsung star of the playlist, however, was not music from the ’90s at all. It was the film’s instrumental score, interwoven between era tracks, by none other than Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (“The Social Network”). The score periodically offers a break between the intense period grooves and forces listeners to confront the innately human side of the story that Hill expresses. Sure, Hill’s unmistakably personal track choices shape the experience, but Reznor and Ross elevate these nuances into mellifluous, thrumming climaxes that imbue the soundtrack with a sense of momentum. As Hill ingeniously intends, a listener can walk away from the playlist with a view into someone’s life in the mid-90s, not a bland aggregate of timely music. “To me, the title ‘Mid90s’ was a joke,” he said, “because people would expect it to be like that ’90s movie and then they get this kind of small emotional, hopefully moving film.” The soundtrack, at least, is undoubtedly all of these things. ANISH TAMHANEY For the Daily FILM NOTEBOOK A24 Friday, November 2, 2018 — 6A Arts The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com