Delayed Reaction: Minding the Gap

The Pitch: It's Mid90s but with real people and some hindsight.

A documentary following how a group of skateboarders transition to adulthood despite their different familial and societal setbacks.

OK, I get why so much of the discussion about Mid90s led back to Minding the Gap. It's really unfortunate that Jonah Hill's directorial debut about a group of skateboarding friends came out the same year that Bing Liu's long-gestating documentary about skateboarding friends came out. Because Minding the Gap is much better and even mirrors characters.

One of my favorite things with documentaries is, unlike scripted films, a filmmaker can find the film as they are making it. The Wolfpack started from Crystal Moselle running into this family in the park and wanted to know their story. Icarus started as an investigation into doping in cycling. Capturing the Friedmans miraculously came about while researching clowns. Or there's something like the magnificent Up series in which the story literally is the passage or time. That's what makes Minding the Gap so exciting to watch. Bing Liu was a skateboarder growing up. He was the kid in his group with a camera recording everything to make into mix tapes. Along the way, he realized there could be something in the story of his friends or acquaintances that could be worth sharing. That led to this pretty great documentary that covers a variety of issues from dealing with the challenges of adulthood, coping with abuse, and societal opportunities (or lack thereof).

Liu focuses of his friend Zack, who recently became a dad, and longtime acquaintance Kierre, who reflects on the positive and negative influence his now deceased father had on him. This leads to Liu confronting some truths about his own  childhood as well. I don't want to get too deep into the details, because the movie tells the story better. He does find connections between each of their stories and they aren't always good things. In general, it;s a messy and fascinating profile of the three of them. For those who have seen Mid90s, it's striking how much  Zack and Kierre remind me of Fuckshit and Ray respectively.

Minding the Gap does jump all over the place. It's not the most focused documentary. Liu has years of footage he's assembling into the movie. He's prone to take random detours that don't necessarily inform the primary narrative. For some reason, it works though. I'll trade messiness for sincerity. The documentary very much reflects how it was made. Liu had an idea where it was going but let the content dictate the direction, even if that temporarily took him in a different direction entirely.

Final thoughts: I see what's charming about Zack, but I don't like him. Kierre comes out of this looking awesome. I'm really excited to see what Liu doesn't next.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend