The Beach Bum (2019)

Directed by: Harmony Korine | 94 minutes | comedy | Actors: Matthew McConaughey, Snoop Dogg, Isla Fisher, Stefania LaVie Owen, Martin Lawrence, Zac Efron, Jonah Hill, Jimmy Buffett, Donovan St V. Williams, David Bennett, Clinton Archambault, Joshua Rosen, Tonya Oliver

You either love his work or you don’t like it at all. But you have an opinion about Harmony Korine anyway. The controversial American filmmaker had his breakthrough in 1995 when he made the film ‘Kids’ with photographer Larry Clark, about young people in New York who lead a hedonistic life full of drink, drugs and sex during the AIDS epidemic. The film launched the careers of actresses Chloë Sevigny (Korine’s girlfriend at the time) and Rosario Dawson as well as Korine herself, who, in addition to writing scripts, also took the director’s chair to make a number of experimental, genre-transcending films that kept busy. While his work was labeled as too controversial and morally reprehensible on the one hand, he was embraced by, for example, colleagues Gus Van Sant and Werner Herzog as one of the greatest American directing talents. Korine’s most successful film is ‘Spring Breakers’ (2012), a colorful crime film in which a group of students during spring break (‘spring break’) end up in a world full of sex, drugs and crime via an eccentric drug dealer played by James Franco. Opinions also differ widely about this film; where one considers the scantily clad actresses to be misogynistic and sexist, the other sees them as a modern example of ‘girl power’.

‘The Beach Bum’ (2019), Korine’s first film since ‘Spring Breakers’, is the most accessible film he has made to date. Matthew McConaughey stars as Moondog, a kind of hippie poet with long sun-bleached hair who once published a successful collection and has since lived on that one success – and the fortune of his wealthy wife Minnie (Isla Fischer). Occasionally he sits with a typewriter between his legs, but most of the time he spends with a fat joint between his fingers or a bottle of booze in his hands. His marriage to Minnie is one of the liberal kind, so he regularly hangs out with the scantily clad ladies who stroll the beaches of the Florida Keys. Who makes him what? Worries are for tomorrow. His daughter Heather (Stefania LaVie Owen), who is about to get married, hopes that her father will finally grow up a bit and his agent (Jonah Hill) is mainly waiting for his long-awaited new novel to come out. But Moondog is in no rush, preferring to smoke some weed with his buddy Lingerie (Snoop Dogg, who is basically playing himself). When disaster strikes and Minnie dies, Moondog’s lazy life is suddenly over. In her will, she has stated that he will only receive his share of her fortune when he becomes an adult and finishes his book. Much to the frustration of Moondog, who soon abandons a half-hearted attempt at drug addiction and embarks on an adventure in his quest to find himself with a pyromaniac named Flicker (Zac Efron), dolphin boater Captain Wack (Martin Lawrence), and musician Jimmy Buffett (playing himself) . But will he ever grow up…?

The ‘stoner film’ (or ‘slacker film’) has become a genre in itself. Moondog is distantly reminiscent of, for example, ‘The Dude’ from ‘The Big Lebowski’ (1998), although the character from ‘The Beach Bum’ is more of an anarchic hedonist and ‘The Dude’ rather a charming idler. The trick is with a movie like ‘The Beach Bum’ to immerse yourself in the world Moondog and his associates live in, otherwise there isn’t much to it. Thanks to the colourful, intoxicating camera work of the Belgian Benoît Debie, who also filmed ‘Spring Breakers’, this works out nicely. But because the story leads nowhere, you’ll just as quickly give up again, especially if you’re not cringing at Zac Efron flirting with an overgrown transvestite, Martin Lawrence feeding his parrot cocaine, or McConaughey having sex and phone calls. a graceful lady hits the buttocks with a spatula. The actors undoubtedly had a lot of fun making this film, but of course there is no question of any depth; some half-hearted attempts to do so come to nothing. The fact that McConaughey teamed up with Korine after a string of acclaimed roles mainly indicates that deep down he is still that half-hippie who lived in a camper on the beach and was once arrested by the police for drumming naked. .

Lacking depth and without a surprising message, you would say that ‘The Beach Bum’ is little more than a one and a half hour trip in which life is extensively celebrated. What lifts this film just above the average stoner comedy is Harmony Korine, who still shows a sense of style and atmosphere between all the meaningless scenes. Now only that content remains!