Red Rocket.

The idea of the con man as amiable rascal goes back decades, at least, but the archetype has been overtaken by current events, not least from our four years with a con man in the White House. In Sean Baker’s latest film, the hilarious dark comedy Red Rocket, Baker plays with the format by giving us a charming, fast-talking con man as the lead character, making it clear in stages that he’s a self-aggrandizing loser who does not care whose lives he destroys as long as none of them is his own. (You can rent it on Amazon, iTunes, or Google Play.)

Baker’s previous film, The Florida Project was my favorite film of 2017, anchored by an incredible performance by a 6-year-old actress, Brooklynn Prince, with no previous acting credits. Red Rocket is almost as good, and once again he’s cast two unconventional actors as leads: former MTV VJ and unserious actor Simon Rex, and an unknown actor named Suzanna Son, who had just one minor movie credit before this one.

Rex plays “Mikey Saber,” a former porn star who has returned to Texas City after his career ended for unknown reasons, and tries to move back in with his estranged wife, Lexi (Bree Elrod), who at least for a time was in adult films with him. After a few futile attempts to find regular work, stymied by the long gap on his resume, Mikey begins selling weed for Leondria, who distributes with the help of her kids, especially her stoic daughter June. When Mikey has enough money to finally pay Lexi and her mom Lil something for rent, he takes them to the local donut shop, where he meets 17-year-old Strawberry (Son), and immediately sets his sights on seducing her, with an eye towards taking her to LA and using her as his way back into the porn industry.

As in The Florida Project, the majority of actors in Red Rocket are non-professionals; only Rex and Elrod had more than one acting credit before this film, with Elrod mostly working on the stage since she was in Shutter Island a decade ago. Baker’s skill for finding people who can fill these roles is remarkable, with Brittney Rodriguez (June) especially standing out once her character finally gets to talk, in the film’s funniest scene by far, a family squabble near the end of the movie that was, of course, provoked by Mikey.

But it’s Rex and especially Son who make this movie. Rex is perfectly annoying as the guy who never shuts up about himself, his plans, how greatness is just around the corner, how he would already have been rich and/or famous except that something happened. He has an external locus of control large enough to enclose his giant ego, and he never tires of telling everyone who’ll listen about it. Son is a revelation as Strawberry, a convincing teenager (she’s actually 26) who leans a little into the Lolita role Mikey sees for her, but who is also naïve enough not to realize how sinister Mikey’s motives are and to appear to fall for him and his schemes, even when some external factors should tip her off. She evinces the superficial worldliness of the teenager who thinks she’s an adult, especially since the world often treats her that way, but who’s also too trusting and sometimes misses obvious points about how the world works. She also gets to sing in one of the movie’s stranger moments – it comes after a sex scene, which is awkward like every single sex scene in the movie, almost always because of Mikey – and has a lovely voice that had me convinced I’d heard her before. (She sounds like one of the many indie singer/songwriters out there right now, although I haven’t been able to figure out which one yet.)

The film is dark, despite being incredibly funny, and never quite grapples with how awful Mikey is other than letting you see the person under the hood (quite literally, near the end of the film). He’s a 40-something creep who seduces a 17-year-old and sees absolutely nothing wrong with it, even when he tells her ex-boyfriend to leave her alone because she’s with Mikey now. He uses his closest friend, or the closest thing he has to a friend, for free transportation for weeks, only to land that friend in a world of trouble from which Mikey escapes. He weasels his way back into Lexi’s life, clearly giving her false hope that he’s sticking around and will allow her to put something back together – her mother is addicted to opioids, and Lexi might be as well – only to have him ditch her the moment he locks in on Strawberry as his mark. He’s irredeemable with no interest in redemption. I have known several people, all men, just like him, convinced that a huge success is just around the corner, that the world simultaneously owes them this success and is the only thing denying it to them. They’re insufferable even as friends or acquaintances, and that’s if you don’t get caught up in one of their schemes. It’s a testament to Baker’s script and Rex’s performance that Mikey is so familiar and recognizable, and that he can entertain us even as we want to throttle him.