Red Rocket – Dreams of a User

Red Rocket – 2021

Director Sean Baker
Screenplay Baker, Chris Bergoch
Starring Simon Rex, Bree Elrod, Suzanna Son, Brenda Deiss, Judy Hill, Brittney Rodriguez, Ethan Darbone

Mikey “Saber” Davies (Rex) rides into Texas City, Texas. He then walks to the house of his ex, Lexi (Elrod). She wants nothing to do with him. Neither does her mother, Lil (Deiss). Soon enough, he’s talked his way into sleeping on their couch while he hunts for a job. As he sweet talks Lexi, he tells her that it reminds him of the time when they were married. She reminds him they still are married.

We find out Mikey and Lexi had left Texas for Los Angeles two decades ago. They began to work in porn together, then she broke down came back. She found another man, who got her pregnant. Now she didn’t have the child or the man. Mikey stayed in L.A., living a life of illusion.

Mikey did not find a job right away, but he got work selling weed for Leondra (Hill). Nobody expects much out of him. However, he soon starts making enough profit to buy new clothes from a garage sale. He also manages to pay Lexi and Lil’s rent. Lil is grateful, she tells Mikey, because Lexi no longer has to sell herself on Craigslist.

One afternoon, after Lexi lets him start to sleep with her again, he takes them out for donuts. At the donut shop he meets Strawberry (Son) and his mind begins to race. Very soon he is going out with the 17 year old, then he is sleeping with her.

He tells Strawberry that he lives on the rich side of town in a bought a house for his ailing mother. He takes this story as far as he can. He starts grooming her with the idea of going into porn. He pushes himself away from Lexi. She had just begun to get the spark of hope in her eyes.

Mikey is a user. His life is that of a small timer who lives off of a different big story for each person he meets. He uses them to suit what he believes he can get from them. He spreads their good will over the like butter on the bland toast of his life. No one asks anything of Mikey, but he promises each of them the moon until he doesn’t need them any more.

He doesn’t have self-awareness enough to realize why he has nothing going for him in his mid-40’s. Yet, he has an ability to sell a story to the person in front of him. Strawberry is just next in line. She is fresh and filled with optimism and hope, like we imagine Lexi was at one point.

Red Rocket isn’t a perfect story, but it’s a damn good one. Like most Baker films, the director takes a depressing situation and manages to inject some humor along side the realism. We know Mikey is absurd and full of shit. People like Lexi’s simple next door neighbor Lonnie (Darbone) have no such idea. When Lonnie’s father comes across Mikey after 20 years. He has nothing to say. We intrinsically know why.

As he does in his other films, The Florida Project and Anora, Baker shows an unerring ability. He can grab acting talent from obscurity. Every performance here is award worthy and of bedrock quality. Baker tells the Greek tragedy for the common American lowlife.

That said, like his other stories, this is not a story for all tastes. This is one more story about people of whom most Americans would be unaware. Or try to ignore. If you want to see humanity at its saddest, most absurd, any of these three films are worth a shot.

(**** out of *****)