Minding the Gap

2018 documentary

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Three skateboarding friends face the challenge of transitioning from adolescent problems to adult problems.

"This machine cures hearthache." That's written on one of the boy's skateboards. Skateboarding for these teens who are facing abuse, absent or deceased fathers, and alienation is therapy. There's joy in the scenes showing these kids skateboarding through the streets or on top of a building or in a skate park. Seeing the boys' smiles and watching what has to be the only times they feel completely free is exhilarating.

I'm not sure how people skateboard actually. I can't even stand on top of one. And I'm really not sure how some of these skateboard scenes are filmed. I assume the director--Bing Liu, one of the three kids--is just following along on a skateboard while holding the camera, but that doesn't seem safe. Of course, one of the guys also skateboards while holding a baby which also doesn't feel entirely safe.

This is compiled from what must be thousands of hours of footage taken over what seems to be more than a ten-year period. There's lots of video from before anybody had an idea to turn this into a feature-length documentary, but it's clear later that the young adult versions of these two friends, along with the baby mama of one of them who also becomes a main character, are aware that a documentary is being made. You see the trio grow from adolescence to young adults, most touchingly in a flashing montage at the end.

This isn't a movie about watching three boys age physically, however. This is more about that "gap" between adolescence and adulthood, and as the movie progresses, you see what kinds of adolescent problems these three are using skateboarding as an escape from as well as the kinds of adult problems that are replacing, and in some cases seeming to be the results of, those adolescent problems. The footage works to create a mosaic, the issues these people facing becoming more gradually revealed rather than spelled out right away. And I think that's Liu's greatest feat with Minding the Gap--the way he creates their individual narratives and their shared narrative of friendship in such a lovely way.

Eventually, it's revealed that the process of making a movie has replaced skateboarding as therapy for Liu. One of them--the one dealing with trying to figure out how to be a father and struggling with alcoholism--also comments that being the subject of Liu's camera is like free therapy. The other guy--the one dealing with living life as a young black man with a missing father--doesn't share that sentiment as overtly, but it's clear in touching sequences where he unloads.

This is one of the most honest documentaries that I've seen in a long time. There's subjectivity, of course, but watching these guys struggle with issues was heartbreaking and beautiful. I kind of fell in love with them, warts and all, and I'm really hoping that when a sequel comes out in a few years (like the 7 Up series), they're all doing fine.

I thought that 2018 was the Year of the Horse Movie, but it might actually be the Year of the Skateboard Movie. Jonah Hill's upcoming movie and a movie out now called Skate Kitchen both have lots of skateboarding.