<em>Beach Rats</em> Is One of the Year’s Boldest Dramas
Eliza Hittman’s film chronicles the life of a closeted young man spending his days on the boardwalks of Coney Island.
The first moments of are lit by the harsh glare of a cellphone flash bouncing off a bathroom mirror, as the chiseled Frankie (Harris Dickinson) takes selfie after selfie, his baseball cap obscuring most of his face. It’s an image that could easily come off as patronizing—the introduction of a preening, superficial young man, defining himself through the lens of a camera—but the film’s director, Eliza Hittman, has deeper goals. Locked away in this dark
