Eliza Hittman first came onto our radar with “It Felt Like Love,” and she’s a filmmaker we’ve kept an eye out for ever since. She’s back this year with “Beach Rats,” a new film premiering at the Sundance Film Festival, and it promises another intimately drawn story.
Inspiration for the movie came during the making of “It Felt Like Love” from an unlikely source — a single image on Facebook. “It was a guy standing at a mirror holding his phone, with a big flash from the camera,” Hittman said. “He had his shirt off and this hat on, and the visor was sort of masking his eyes. It looked like he was about to pull down his gym shorts and take a picture of his dick. There was this tension between hyper-masculine and homoerotic that the picture so clearly illustrated.” And from there, the director began to unthread what would become “Beach Rats.” Here’s the official synopsis:
An aimless teenager on the outer edges of Brooklyn, Frankie is having a miserable summer. With his father on his deathbed and his mother wanting him to find a girlfriend, Frankie escapes the bleakness of his home life by causing trouble with his delinquent friends and flirting with older men online. When his chatting and webcamming intensifies, he finally starts hooking up with guys at a nearby cruising beach while simultaneously entering into a cautious relationship with a young woman. As Frankie struggles to reconcile his competing desires, his decisions leave him hurtling towards irreparable consequences.
Starring Harris Dickinson, Madeline Weinstein, and Kate Hodge, “Beach Rats” premieres at Sundance today, so keep an eye out for our review.
Click here for our complete coverage from the 2017 Sundance Film Festival
