Because of the Disney/Freeform background of star Maia Mitchell, Never Goin’ Back has that Spring Breakers vibe to it but these two films couldn’t be any more different. Never Goin’ Back isn’t without drugs or vulgarity and there’s a lot of it throughout the film.
A first feature from writer-director Augustine Frizzell, it’s another film in which one can show their support of a female director. Just as Sean Baker brought light to underrepresented low-income families with The Florida Project, Frizzell does something similar with her focus on two teenage girls in her feature debut. These societal segments need to be represented more on screen so as to say, we see you and you’re valid even if life isn’t perfect.
Jessie (Cami Morrone) and Angela (Maia Mitchell) are two best friends living together and they’ve both dropped out of high school. Two of them work at the same diner even though there’s a sense of knowing that they don’t want to be there and would rather be doing something else. All they want to do is spend the week at the beach in Galveston, Texas, for Jessie’s 17th birthday but doing that is easier said than done. They’ll have to put in a lot of hours at work just so their broke asses will be able to pay their rent.
Going to the beach won’t be so easy after their house gets robbed and they get sent off to juvenile detention for a few days. They are stuck with the worst housemates in the world in Dustin (Joel Allen), Ryan (Matthew Holcumb), and Brandon (Kyle Mooney).
In signing on to play Angela, Mitchell shows a sense of maturing as an actress. She’s no longer that young teen that people watched in the Disney Channel Original Movie, Teen Beach Movie. In watching her performance, there’s a sense of knowing that she’s ready to take on those adult roles or at least the kind of roles that aren’t typical for the Disney and Freeform brand, much in the same way that a few Disney and Freeform stars took on roles in Spring Breakers.
The jokes in this film are typical of both high school teens and those in the early years of college no matter what side of the tracks one comes from and whether or not they dropped out. The cinematography during the night scenes are well-shot, much thanks to cinematographer Greta Zozula.
In Never Goin’ Back, writer-director Augustine Frizzell shows that it’s possible to find the comedy in a relationship between two people even in the worst of their situations.
An official selection of the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, Never Goin’ Back premiered in the Midnight program.
One thought on “Sundance 2018: Never Goin’ Back”