Once thought of as the useless era for culture, music and cinema, the 80s have become the new-go-to fascination for film material.
It’s circa 1984 when we learn that Richard Wersche Jr (Richie Merritt) is a street hustler, an FBI informant and a drug Kingpin. Our story opens at an arms show where Rick is too young to purchase a gun, but his father, Richard Wersche Sr. (Matthew McConaughey) tough-talks his way into two.
Right from the get-go we hear the strength in the screenplay that brings us into Rick’s view of his depressing world. Rick’s mother is dead. His sister Dawn (Beth Powley) is an addict, and his father messes with the law, despite promising his son the dream of opening dozens of video stores. The only normal thing in Rick’s life – if you can call them that – are his grandparents (Bruce Dern and Piper Laurie) who desperately try to instill discipline in an impressionable boy where no house rules apply.
Rick finds himself searching for love, desperate to fit in –someplace, anyplace – and scoping out the night scene (he’s only 14) with roller skates and disco balls. Maybe he can fit in here?
Rick is hungry for a childhood,too, and it’s made apparent by the subtle mention of his grandparents baking cookies or the TV backdrop of “Luke and Laura’s” famous wedding scene on General Hospital. There’s the oversized stuffed toy yellow duck found in a trash heap that Rick clings and carries as if to reclaim his lost youth.
A foul mouthed, tough ghetto boy, his nickname “White Boy Rick” hails from the local gangs who deal his drugs. But he’s also in a deal with the FBI, to nail some bad guys so that they can get warrants. Apparently, Rick needs to make five buys to seal the deal and turn state’s evidence on the law.
Meantime, Rick hungers for more. He wears a large Star of David, not realizing it’s Jewish meaning, but instead the symbol to be a star. He longs to achieve wealth and greatness. He longs to get his college degree. He longs to escape this life he has no understanding how to get out of. Further irony is the non-stop snow and rain as backdrop to everything. Never does Rick – or we – see the sunshine on the screen.
Being shot in the stomach doesn’t help, either. Abdominal wounds mean that you wont die, but you’ll live a horrible life struggling to regain your lower ‘functions’.
It all becomes apparent as a messy world moves around Rick – and thanks to Director, Yann Demange – who shows us that this is actually a coming-of-age story tied up in a drug war.
In an odd way this movie is this year’s Call Me By Your Name. A young man exploring his identity. The good news for the young gay man in last year’s film, was that he went back home to university to study after a summer abroad, and only suffered a broken heart. In White Boy Rick based on a true story, Rick sadly (and without giving away the twist) finds himself incarcerated at age 17, only being released decades later in 2017.
Rick’s redeeming quality is his longing to do the right thing.
And finally, there’s a silent political thread that pulls through this film about the 80s that somehow weaves thru today’s issues of gun control and gun laws. McConaughey has chosen to play a range of political role…Gold, Free State of Jones, Dallas Buyers Club….his gaunt and often inebriated physique inherits the character, all the while surfacing his emotional underdog struggle. In the end what you have is a very sad film that shines a brilliant sunny light on both McConaughey and newcomer Merritt come Best Supporting Actor time. Three tiaras