Red Rocket(2021)

Plot Summary

• After a 17-year absence, Mikey Saber returns to Texas City, his Gulf Coast hometown, in 2016. Badly bruised and almost broke, he arrives at the modest home shared by Lexi, his estranged wife, and her mother Lil. Mikey begs Lexi and Lil to let him stay at their house, but they insist that he get a job and perform household chores. The handsome and fast-talking Mikey tries to land work at a local diner and a Dollar General store, but is hindered by a nearly twenty-year gap in his résumé. After he admits to potential employers that he spent those years working as a porn star in Los Angeles, they refuse to hire him. Desperate, Mikey persuades Leondria, a marijuana dealer, to give him his old job back selling pot. Leondria and her daughter, June, suspect that Mikey will smoke the weed himself, but after he returns with his earnings their business arrangement continues. Mikey gives Lexi and Lil a month's rent in advance and takes them to a doughnut shop to celebrate. He is smitten with Strawberry, an attractive 17-year-old girl who works at the counter. He regularly returns to the doughnut shop and persuades Strawberry to let him sell pot to the construction workers who frequent the shop. Strawberry and Mikey soon start a sexual relationship. After sleeping on the couch for several nights, Mikey starts having sex with Lexi. Eventually she invites him to share her bedroom. When Mikey disappears for a weekend with Strawberry, Lexi grows suspicious and jealous. They quarrel and Lexi hurls a coffee pot which narrowly misses Mikey's head. Mikey becomes friends with Lexi's neighbor, Lonnie, who is intrigued by Mikey's tall tales about his porn career and sexual encounters. They visit a strip club and spend time together, but Mikey's impulsiveness causes Lonnie to swerve across traffic at a highway off-ramp, creating a massive vehicle pile-up. After Mikey persuades Lonnie to hide his involvement in the accident, Lonnie assumes sole responsibility for the crash when he is arrested. When Mikey causes Strawberry to break up with Nash, her high-school boyfriend, Nash and his parents confront Mikey in the doughnut shop parking lot and beat him. Mikey persuades Strawberry to travel with him to Los Angeles to pursue a career in adult films. After Mikey informs Lexi that he is leaving the next morning, she and Lil convince Leondria to send June and her brothers to confiscate the $3,000 that Mikey earned from selling pot. When Leondria's children confront him while he is sleeping, Mikey sneaks out a bedroom window naked and runs to Leondria's house to beg her to return his money. She gives him $200 and tells him to leave or face the threat of violence. Humiliated and nearly broke again, Mikey leaves with a few meager possessions. After travelling all night on foot to Strawberry's house, Mikey imagines seeing her dressed in a red bikini in her front doorway and his eyes well with tears as he slightly chuckles before the film cuts to black.

Storyline

• Finding himself down and out in Los Angeles, ex porn star Mikey Saber decides to crawl back to his hometown of Texas City, Texas, where his estranged wife and mother-in-law are living. Just as this dysfunctional family seems to be making things work, Mikey meets a young woman named Strawberry working the cash register at a local doughnut shop. He falls right back into his old habits. Not knowing what to expect, black-and-blue Mikey Saber, a fading, down-and-out adult film star, sets foot in his hometown of Texas City. And, after nearly two long decades of total estrangement, Mikey has the nerve to show up at the front door of his long-suffering wife, Lexi. As Mikey gives unprotected Lexi his infamous puppy-dog eyes, little by little, the washed-up actor finds his way into her life, trying to pick up where they left off. Then, Strawberry, a bright and bubbly doughnut shop cashier, catches Mikey's eye--after all, everybody knows bad habits are hard to break. Could she be his ticket back into the industry? Above all, is the charming slicker destined for glory? — Nick Riganas