There is nothing original about 'Beach Rats': its central character is a disaffected Brooklyn youth with few obvious prospects. He takes drugs with his dead-beat friends and hooks up with men he meets on the internet. His father is seriously ill and he has a younger sister he feels he has to protect. The same basic scenario has appeared - perhaps with one or two differences - in any number of American films.
But that does not mean this is not worth watching. In the leading role, Briton Harris Dickinson - disguising his natural accent well - gives a subtle performance, making Frankie sort-of likable but not hiding his flaws. Kate Hodge, playing his mother, convinces in her quiet concern for her son (and has one of the most emotional scenes in the film when she lays on the bed next to her dying husband). Madeline Weinstein, as Frankie's girlfriend, is feisty and attractive.
I would have preferred director Eliza Hittman to have used fewer grainy shots; they add nothing except pretension. The number of extreme close-ups she uses is also tiresome. But she has created a watchable film which is probably destined to become a homosexual cinema standard for the next several years - albeit largely due, I imagine, to Dickinson's nude scenes.
But that does not mean this is not worth watching. In the leading role, Briton Harris Dickinson - disguising his natural accent well - gives a subtle performance, making Frankie sort-of likable but not hiding his flaws. Kate Hodge, playing his mother, convinces in her quiet concern for her son (and has one of the most emotional scenes in the film when she lays on the bed next to her dying husband). Madeline Weinstein, as Frankie's girlfriend, is feisty and attractive.
I would have preferred director Eliza Hittman to have used fewer grainy shots; they add nothing except pretension. The number of extreme close-ups she uses is also tiresome. But she has created a watchable film which is probably destined to become a homosexual cinema standard for the next several years - albeit largely due, I imagine, to Dickinson's nude scenes.