Review:

I can imagine what Eliza Hittman was trying to do, but unfortunately her inexperience shows, or maybe she just thinks she's made art so none of the elements of the film matter. The plot is terrible and stumbles around in circles, going nowhere and ending up only a few inches from where we started. Nothing really happens and then the film just ends with no ending, no resolution, nothing, just roll credits, we're done here. The casting was terrible and all the male characters feel like someone found a Ralph Lauren ad and peeled the guy off the paper, I don't mean they found the model, I mean they literally have the piece of paper casted as the main character. Harris Dickinson has a blank look on his face that only changes to extreme nausea (although he doesn't ever actually become nauseous) and he has no chemistry with anyone: his friends, his family, the random dudes he finds, or the pretend girlfriend. His friends are equally bad actors, but they aren't main characters so it's less offensive. With all this garbage, we also have a complete lack of characterization for every character, no one has a personality, no one is unique, no one is interesting. Not even the cinematography works. We have close ups of characters that don't matter during scenes they have nothing to do with and they keep going into the crappy "found-footage cam" that is laggy, grainy, and way too dark. We also have many scenes that have no point and drag along. Shots are out of focus and framed awkwardly for no reason. Beach Rats feels like an attempt to ride wave of gay coming of age films like Moonlight, but without any effort or respect for the material. I don't think anyone gave half a crap when they made the film, the actors don't act, the director appears to have not paid attention to the filming, and the studio must not have watched this before they sent it out. I appreciate that this isn't a by-the-numbers coming of age story, but that's only because this is barely even a story; it's a collection of scenes staring the same characters in the same world. Beach rats has nothing to offer to anyone.