A24
There’s a kind of antihero anthem that is common in a lot of movies, the sort of underdog scumbag type we’re meant to root for despite being a scumbag because they’re attractive and/or entertaining. Sometimes it works, but sometimes it doesn’t. It tends to rise and fall on the actors and the writing whether or not the audience can get past the annoying stupidity.
Never Goin’ Back comes from writer/director Augustine Frizzell in her first film and is about two friends. It’s a simple concept and a lot of movies do the whole ‘friends forever trying to get by’ thing. BFFs Angela (Maia Mitchell) and Jessie (Camila Morrone) live together as high school dropouts and young ne’er do wells with a bunch of dudes. Angela is dark haired and around 17 or so (not in real life) and is trashy. Jessie has dirty blonde hair, the same age (not in real life, in real life she’s been dating Leonardo DiCaprio who is merely twice her age) and is also trashy.
They are nearly the same person, which explains why they are such good friends. Although their lack of differentiating qualities does make it difficult to care as much since they are essentially a homogeneous blob of young-girl trashiness, except that Angela can’t use the bathroom except at home. This is a problem, as we are instantly asked to care about these two idiots, who are massive screw-ups.
Since there’s no notion of their families, it’s a question about their history, which may be traumatic. But it’s only implied, really, and never spelled out. Their manager at the restaurant they work at as waitresses likes them, but although they aren’t monsters, it’s hard to care much about their wants and needs. Jessie and Angela want to go on a trip to the beach (they live somewhere in Texas) but need the money badly. It would’ve been fine except that after getting robbed by a ‘friend’ of one roommate, they end up without any money due to getting arrested for drug possession.
Their roommates are a bunch of screw-ups and idiots, which one played by Kyle Mooney, who seems to have the only stable job of any of them. The movie gets confused about who’s bad and who’s good, showing us clichéd caricatures of stuck up old people to evince sympathy for the girls. There are also a few mistakes in judgment and missteps that aren’t entirely their fault that cause problems, but essentially everything that goes wrong for them is due to their mistakes.
Their criminal wannabe roommates are much worse, drawing more of the sorts of eye-rolling reactions instead of the chortles I think are desired. So basically everyone is insufferable, but the girls aren’t funny or interesting or deep enough that I can muster enough desire to care about their dreams of frolicking on the beach in bikinis.
Oddly, the movie plays weirdly with this sort of exploitative vibe, more than I’d expect from a film written and directed by a woman. The film itself plays with non-diegetic music for comedic purposes, but nothing that innovative or unique, and the style is fairly plain and uninteresting. Ultimately, it’s forgettable.
Never Goin’ Back has a run time of 1 hour 26 minutes and is rated R for crude sexual content and language throughout, drug use and brief nudity – all involving teens.
A24
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