Never Goin’ Back | 2 ½ out of 4 Stars | Rated R
By Kyle Osborne
It’s an odd, but engaging film that mixes an Indie character study vibe with elements of a gross-out, buddy film. I suppose there is some novelty in having two teenaged girls discussing poop, pooping, not being able to poop, and not being able to stop pooping—but what makes Never Goin’ Back interesting is the way it looks at a segment of “White Trash” culture in the same way that The Florida Project did: through a frank, unromanticized lens.
Of course, when it’s young people scraping to get by, instead of a single mother (as in Florida Project) there is a temptation to see the story as less tragic, more humorous. And, indeed, the two girls at the film’s center (Maia Mitchell and Camila Morrone) are funny. They play dropouts who’ve turned to waitressing at a diner, barely making enough to pay rent. But they have a short term goal.
As famed screenwriter Aaron Sorkin once summed up storytelling (loosely quoting) “you have a character who has something he wants, but there’s something standing in his way, and he has to get around it.” For writer/director Augustine Frizzell, the “something” they want is a trip to the beach in Galveston, Texas. The things standing in their way include a flunky roommate whose low aspirations of being a low-level drug dealer are not going well, a snarky co-worker who’s trying to steal their shifts, and a distinct lack of funds to do, well, just about anything.
What they do have, and it’s not as cliché as this will make it sound, is each other. There is something real about their friendship. You get the feeling that, unlike their high school contemporaries who will forget about each other in the years to come, these two will still be plotting their way into the next mundane dream, and out of the next crisis, of which there will always be plenty.
It has it’s funny moments, but it’s not a comedy. It’s deeper than that.