Red Rocket

Red Rocket (2021) is Sean Baker's tragicomedy, available to watch online on iFILM. Mikey Saber, a washed-up porn star with no money and no plan, rides a bus back to the run-down Gulf Coast oil town of Texas City he once fled. He knocks on the door of his estranged wife and her mother because there's nowhere else to go.

Mikey is good at exactly one thing: charming people and using them. He talks his way into a room, deals weed on the side, sweet-talks a neighbor, and sets his sights on Strawberry, a seventeen-year-old behind the counter of the local donut shop, seeing in her a ticket back into the business. Simon Rex plays that likable self-delusion so well you can't look away even when you want to. Newcomer Suzanna Son holds the screen beside him as Strawberry. The 2016 election plays on every TV in the background.

Baker, who made The Florida Project, again points his camera at forgotten America and its sidelined people. The film premiered in competition at Cannes, and Rex's turn was hailed as one of the year's best lead performances. It's a sharp, funny, deeply uncomfortable portrait of a man who can't stop himself. It's for fans of indie cinema with no rose-tinted glasses. Stream Red Rocket (2021) online on iFILM.