Mid90s review: Jonah Hill's directorial debut is a problematic paean to adolescence

Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse Loughrey Get our The Life Cinematic email for free Get our The Life Cinematic email for free SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. On the surface, Jonah Hill’s low-key directorial debut Mid90s is an exercise in nostalgia, a paean to adolescence and that sudden sense of liberation. Shot on 16mm film with a retro 4:3 aspect ratio by Christopher Blauvelt, it’s grainy and naturalistic – a kind of cross between Richard Linklater’s Slacker and Larry Clark’s Kids, but with added profanity. Completing the posse is Ruben, a boy only marginally older than Stevie, who dispenses such dubious advice as: “Don’t thank people – they’re gonna think you’re gay.” The banter is daft and coarse – not too dissimilar, then, to that of the Judd Apatow comedies with which Hill made his name. Take a scene in which F**kS**t is too drunk to be cool around Ray’s older friends – you sense the gang’s whole dynamic splintering apart.