There’s little you can expect about Jonah Hill’s directorial debut, Mid90s, based on what you know about him as an actor. The Hill we’re familiar with—first as the hilarious loudmouth in Superbad, then as the writhing, Quaalude-popping businessman in The Wolf of Wall Street, and most recently as a super-sad potential schizophrenic in Cary Fukunaga’s Maniac—has always been someone else’s vision. But the vision of Mid90s is wholeheartedly Hill’s own. “This movie is my heart,” Hill said during a recent post-film Q&A in Los Angeles with his Moneyball director, Bennett Miller. “It’s how I feel. It’s how I see the world and saw the world growing up.” The sarcastic characters of Hill’s performances have been replaced by a grateful idealist who talks about his first film like a proud papa handing out cigars.
Mid90s tells the story of 13-year-old Stevie (Sunny Suljic) who, after he’s rejected and bullied by his older brother Ian (Lucas Hedges), finds new role models in a crew of skaters led by the wise and magnanimous Ray (Na-kel Smith). Stevie’s willingness to repeatedly fall on hard concrete as he tries to maneuver a skateboard that looks half his height endears him to his newfound friends. The resultant feelings—and the film’s title—places Mid90s squarely in Hill’s nostalgic memory, where he both dramatizes and idealizes the kids’ adventures.