Jonah Hill's Mid90s Promise Shows, But Never Quite Makes an Impact

On the surface Goodfellas we have TV, there's nothing remotely Scorsesean about Jonah Hill Los Angeles-set coming-of-age skater drama Mid90s. (Bear with me, I'm going somewhere with this.) The austere style, the oblique plotting, the understated performances – this is not exactly Mean Streets we're talking about here. But look a bit deeper and you might notice this: Mid90swhen you get right down to it, is about to be able to take abuse – physically, mentally, emotionally. It follows a boy who, as a character puts it, "I'm seen in my entire life."

The idea of ​​bodily mortification – through rage, through shame, through hedonism – runs through many of Scorsese's movies, most notably Raging Bull and The Wolf of Wall Street (which co-starred Hill). On this level at least, one suspects the actor, making his directorial debut, has learned his lessons well. He is doing things with a flurry of disturbing slams and punches, as we watch little Stevie (Sunny Suljic) being chased down and pummeled by his older brother Ian (Lucas Hedges) at home.

The dynamic between Stevie and his older brother is a complicated one. The strapping Ian has all the features of a bully, but Hedges plays with a pained grimace and a shivery vulnerability that makes us wonder what's really going on inside. The kid seems like he can break into tears at any moment. (Later, he does.) Meanwhile, Stevie looks to sneak into Ian's room whenever he can. It's a well-organized oasis of hats, sneakers, CDs, posters – a dream vision of growing up cool.

Stevie's search for a group of smack-talking older kids who like to hang out at a local skate shop. But there, too, the hits come quickly: These boys like to sling barbs at one another, and Stevie distinguishes himself with his willingness to take dives and go hard. You can not get enough of a phantom, but you can not get enough of it. This is a community where hardness is everything. (The film is filled with bits of dialogue that underscored this idea: "Do not fucking thank people.

Hill portrays these kids with a weird mixture of affection and distance, and there's a hazy nostalgia to their interactions and medium. And while the film is in the foreground, it's a sober mood, it's also an interesting rhythm, as if it's a little pie in the movie's cosmos.

Anyway, all that is the good news. The not-so-good news is that Mid90s Never makes it easy to make an impact, it's so easy to get started with the characters onscreen. These skaters do not really come across as three-dimensional people. They certainly have their traits: Fuckshit (Olan Prenatt) is a zonked out, foul-mouthed screw-up; Fourth Grade (Ryder McLaughlin) is the quiet, awkward one who's always filming; Ray (Na-Kel Smith) is the oldest and the best skater, with vague dreams of going pro. But characters need more than traits.

Modesty can be a virtue in coming-of-age tales – the temptation to lean toward melodrama, or to a strident brand of nostalgia, can be overwhelming – but the shapeless, unventful nature of Mid90s often flirts with tedium. We can wonder why exactly we're watching these people. (That it comes out in a year when we've already had Skate Kitchen and Minding the Gap, two excellent, complex movies about skate culture, certainly does not work in its favor.) It's a hang-out movie, but we're never sure why we're hanging out with any of these people.

In part, this might be because Stevie himself so rarely comes into focus. That, at least, is somewhat understandable. He's still a child, still in the process of becoming, looking for an identity. And so so many other kids, he finds his senses of self by the attitudes of adopting the clothes and the music of those around him. The film, in that sense, reflects its protagonist: It's a collection of postures, moods, and music cues, looking for a reason to exist.

Is that a knock? Maybe, maybe not. Hill may not yet have the chops to pull off that level of formalism. (Gus Van Sant, who was doing this? Do not Worry, He Will not Get Far on Foot, nailed this approach in His skater masterpiece, Paranoid Park.) But it's fascinating and, frankly, encouraging that it's going to be in this direction, instead of trying simpler, clearer, or more manipulative. And as a director, he has enough deftness of style, particularly with some of his editing choices, to keep it curious, if not exactly excited. Mid90s does it, but it shows some promise, and even some guts.