The Beach Bum

I was expecting a bigger ride and trip, but still a cool movie full of familiar faces, weed and half naked women. Matthew McConaughey is completely natural in his role and occasionally slips in a fine line, but I was expecting a lot more humor and fun. Interesting, unconventional with a spiritual twist, but once was enough. 60%. (23/07/2019)

Lighter and funnier than Spring Breakers, The Beach Bum is a totally free and liberating film in which nothing much happens (to anyone) and practically the only “plot” development, in the final third of the film, consists in the always absent-minded Matthew McConaughey starting to wear women’s clothing and barking (which comes across as entirely normal, given the temperament of most of the characters and large number of bizarre situations). The Beach Bum is the perfect mental enema and the only Febiofest film after which I felt truly relaxed. 85% (29/03/2019)

A more adult version of Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, The Beach Bum is a casual bohemian fuck-off to social conventions and Miami glamor, set in a stoner’s euphoria, without the need for genre-specific plots or realistic basics. Though the humour is occasionally so infantile that it’s no longer funny, and there is less ambition for artistic reflection than we are used to with Korine, there is a non-stop good mood and some definitely iconic details, so I predict that, just like good wine, this movie might get better with age. For me, the most iconic scene is the stoned cruise from Key West to Miami on a shoddy, funnily branded motorboat! (08/04/2019)

The sleazy-looking and acting Matthew McConaughey became dangerously comfortable with the role of the poetic genius Moondog. If there were more comedic situations to amuse oneself with here, I could imagine coming back to this dull film sometime. In this way, I'm left with nothing else but to at least chuckle inwardly at the funny scene from the dolphin-swimming trip with sharks, which made the movie worth seeing. (60%) (28/08/2021)

Seen through the lens of Harmony Korine, the world of Floridian potheads has an element of captivating opulence and ridiculous absurdity. As in Spring Breakers, and in all of his previous films, the director presents to us deviant figures and their worlds, which teeter on the edge of reality and the imaginations of the protagonists. Therefore, The Beach Bum contains both surreal sequences and the occasional collision with reality, just as the gleaming aesthetics of music videos get a soiled and shabby tinge of worn-out rags and plain, wrinkled faces. At first glance, particularly after the formally aggressive Spring Breakers, the unexpected stylistic conventionality of Korine's new work is surprising, blunted by the repeat engagement of the elsewhere ostentatiously formalistic Benoît Debie. However, his formal conservatism gives greater force to the natural opulence and exaggerated external stylisation of the characters. After all, it is so varied and excessive that it actually resembles George Miller's post-apocalyptic vision of the last two Mad Max films. Except this time, it is not a post-civilisationvision that unfolds before our eyes, but rather the image of the deranged reality of a Floridian The Inheritance or Fuckoffguysgoodday. (04/05/2019)