Sean Baker

  • Red Rocket (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2022) After Tangerine and The Florida Project, writer-director Sean Baker has already acquired an enviable reputation as a filmmaker with an interest in off-beat character studies, and Red Rocket only reinforces that title. Once again heading to the American South (this time: rural Texas), Baker aims to spend a few weeks alongside a sex worker trying to find their footing. It begins as a former male pornstar returns to his native small town in the hopes of reuniting with his wife and finding a job after being mysteriously run out of Los Angeles. Our protagonist is, not to put it nicely, charismatic but terrible– talking his way back into his estranged wife’s house, but quickly plotting to turn a local 17-year-old girl into a ticket back to the porn industry. It may sound dreary, but it’s a partial measure of Baker’s skill in that the film isn’t too bad of a time even when spent with a monstrous character. There’s a bit of dark humour running through the entire film (for instance; the montage sequence showing how being a freshly-retired pornographic actor isn’t a ticket to gainful employment), and the plotting does have this elusive I-wonder-what-will-happen-next quality. The film isn’t afraid to go ironic (as with the repeated use of N-Sync’s “Bye Bye Bye”), aesthetic (as in showcasing the strange beauty of an industrial plant), empathetic (in making obvious the impact of the protagonist’s actions on the “supporting” character) and even surreal (in concluding on an imaginary sequence, much like The Florida Project). It’s not exactly a fun or likable film – Simon Rex is almost too good in depicting a charming con-man and the film ends right at a moment of crises with unpleasant consequences—but it’s a remarkable one. Perhaps a touch too cynical to be as effective as The Florida Project, but an impressive third entry in a filmography that is bound to become even more imposing.

  • The Florida Project (2017)

    The Florida Project (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, August 2018) Owing to its Oscar nominations, I read a bit about The Florida Project and, frankly, wasn’t expecting to like it a lot. I’m not a big fan of downtrodden characters, poverty dramas or indie-budget wonders. And yet, despite expectations, I was gradually taken by the film and particularly the way it juxtaposes the dream sold at the nearby Disney Park with the misery shared by its protagonists. I strongly suspect that much of the film’s ultimate impact (and it does get intense toward the end) has a lot to do with being the father of a girl of the same age as one of the film’s protagonist. There’s something that I can’t quite handle at this moment about kids in danger (whether immediate of structural, the later of which The Florida Project acutely depicts) that short-circuits a lot of my critical instincts. Still, there’s no denying that writer/director Sean Baker knows what he’s going after: The depiction of desperately poor people shuffling from one hotel to another is gripping. Giving a father-figure role to Willem Dafoe is a great idea—after so many villainous roles, it’s simply a joy to see him as a purely good character, and he got nominated for an Oscar as well. Alas, the rest of The Florida Project plays on an entirely different (and worsening) register, pitting childlike innocence against adult doom until there’s nowhere else to go but in fantasy. Whew. It concludes with a devastating ending, and yet the only one appropriate for the film.