Red Rocket

I spent the first twenty minutes of Red Rocket wanting to reach through the screen and give Mikey Saber a firm shove into a Texas refinery ditch. I also couldn't look away. There is a specific kind of cinematic magic that happens when a filmmaker finds the exact right person to play a charismatic garbage fire of a human being, and Sean Baker (the man behind the neon-drenched The Florida Project) has hit the absolute jackpot here.

I watched this film on my laptop while a particularly bold housefly kept landing on my knee, and honestly, the fly felt like a fitting companion for the experience. Like the fly, Mikey is persistent, slightly annoying, and thrives in environments most people would avoid.

The Return of the Mouth of the South

The film follows Mikey Saber—played with a career-defining, high-voltage energy by Simon Rex—as he bus-hops from Los Angeles back to his hometown of Texas City. He’s broke, bruised, and carrying nothing but a suitcase and a silver tongue. Mikey is a washed-up adult film actor, and Simon Rex (who some might remember from the Scary Movie franchise or his days as an MTV VJ) taps into a very specific brand of American desperation.

He’s a "suitcase pimp," a man who survives by leaching off the women in his life. He convinces his estranged wife, Lexi (Bree Elrod), and her mother, Lil (Brenda Deiss), to let him sleep on their couch. Within days, he’s selling weed on a bicycle and scouting a local donut shop for his next big "star"—a teenager named Strawberry (Suzanna Son).

Mikey Saber is essentially a human version of a mosquito with a spray tan. You know he’s going to bite you, you know he’s carrying nothing but trouble, but he talks so fast and with such deluded optimism that you almost want to see if he can actually fly. Simon Rex doesn't play him as a villain, which is the secret sauce. He plays him as the hero of his own very warped movie. It’s an incredible performance because it requires Rex to be simultaneously exhausted and relentless.

16mm Dreams and Donut Shop Schemes

While many contemporary films feel like they’ve been scrubbed clean by digital filters, Sean Baker and cinematographer Drew Daniels opted to shoot Red Rocket on 16mm film. It makes all the difference. The Texas landscape—dominated by massive, smoking industrial refineries that look like alien cities—glows with a grainy, sun-baked haze. It feels like you can smell the humidity and the cheap cigarettes through the screen.

This is "Contemporary Cinema" that feels grounded in a very specific, messy reality. Released in 2021 but set against the backdrop of the 2016 election, the film captures a sense of a "left-behind" America without ever becoming a preachy political tract. Instead, it uses that atmosphere to highlight Mikey’s own brand of populist snake oil. He’s a guy who promises the world while standing in a literal backyard of dirt.

The breakout discovery here is Suzanna Son. As Strawberry, she brings a haunting, ethereal quality to a role that could have been one-dimensional. Her rendition of NSync’s "Bye Bye Bye" on a dusty upright piano is the kind of scene that stops a movie in its tracks. It’s funny, sweet, and deeply uncomfortable all at once, which is the exact frequency this movie operates on.

The Art of the Indie Pivot

What fascinates me about Red Rocket is how it was made. This is a masterclass in independent resourcefulness. With a budget of just over $1 million, Sean Baker shot this in secret during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The crew was tiny, and the production had to be incredibly nimble.

In a move that has become a Sean Baker trademark, the film is populated with non-professional actors found in the wild. Brenda Deiss, who plays the mother-in-law Lil, was actually discovered by Baker in a local parking lot. She had never acted before, yet she holds her own against Simon Rex with a weary, deadpan skepticism that feels entirely authentic. Sadly, Deiss passed away before the film’s wide release, making her sharp, funny performance a poignant piece of film history.

The film also benefits from a "no-frills" approach to storytelling. There are no heavy-handed musical scores telling you how to feel. Instead, you get the ambient hum of the refineries and the sound of Mikey’s bike tires on gravel. It feels less like a structured drama and more like a voyeuristic look at a guy who is constantly one sentence away from a punch in the face.

Red Rocket is a wild, cringe-inducing, and strangely beautiful ride through the underbelly of the American Dream. It’s a film that trusts its audience to handle a protagonist who is deeply irredeemable yet endlessly watchable. By the time the credits roll to the distorted sounds of boy-band pop, you’ll feel like you need a shower, but you’ll be damn glad you went along for the hustle. Sean Baker continues to prove that you don't need a massive budget to create a world that feels vast, vibrant, and utterly alive.