Art house films in which the camera caresses young male bodies are usually directed by men, like Gus Van Sant or Larry Clark, so Eliza Hittman’s Beach Rats feels like an outlier. If anything, her follow-up to 2013’s It Felt Like Love is as much about a 19-year-old exploring his sexuality as it’s a chance for Pina cinematographer Hélène Louvart to linger on the panes of his face, the curvature of his lips, the contours of his torso.
At home, Frankie (Harris Dickinson) hooks up with men he meets through a gay webcam forum, but with his friends—Brooklyn bros in tank tops and backward hats—he hangs out on the boardwalk, smoking blunts and digging the heteronormative scene.