The Beach Bum
Harmony Korine’s follow-up to 2013’s Spring Breakers is another liquidly non-linear ode to hedonism. Though this film doesn’t exhibit the same biting satire, artistic aggression, or weighted, ethereal beauty as his previous masterwork, it’s still one of the most original and audacious films to make it to mainstream theaters in recent years.
First and foremost, The Beach Bum is a flat-out screwball comedy—and a damned funny one at that. Sure, it’s a comedy executed in the strangest and most artful ways possible, but it’s a comedy nonetheless.
Matthew McConaughey gives another potentially iconic performance as Moondog, a celebrated poet/drunk/stoner who is forced to write his next masterwork when his seemingly endless funds are unexpectedly cut off. McConaughey inhabits the character fully and effortlessly, making Moondog so convincingly alive that he practically jumps off the screen, takes a seat next to you, and blows pot smoke in your face.
The Beach Bum is a wild and anarchic celebration of freedom, and a much-needed middle finger to our materialistic times that only Harmony Korine could accomplish in such a joyously weird way.
GRADE: A
