Frankie, an aimless teenager on the outer edges of Brooklyn, is having a miserable summer. With his father dying and his mother wanting him to find a girlfriend, Frankie escapes the bleakness of his home life by causing trouble with his delinquent friends and flirting with older men online. When his chatting and webcamming intensify, he finally starts hooking up with guys at a nearby cruising beach while simultaneously entering into a cautious relationship with a young woman. As Frankie struggles to reconcile his competing desires, his decisions leave him hurtling toward irreparable consequences.

"Beach Rats," writer/director Eliza Hittman's second feature, has a plot, sort of, but the plot isn't really "the thing" here. The film is more of a tone-poem, a shifting collage of mood and atmosphere, back-lit by the seedy-glamorous colored lights of Coney Island, the neighborhood in which the film takes place. Shot on 16mm by French cinematographer Hélène Louvart, the film immerses you in an almost totally sensorial experience: smells, sounds, colors, the look of skin in sunlight and darkness, etc. Hittman's devotion to the male bodies onscreen is obsessive. Most good filmmakers, and most good artists, are obsessives. It goes with the territory. Hittman's obsession creates a potent blend of eroticism, pent-up feelings and good old-fashioned appreciation of beauty. (Sheila O'Malley)

Sundance IFF 2017 - Directing Award: U.S. Dramatic