
The Kitchen
In “Skate Kitchen,” newcomer Rachelle Vinberg plays Camille, a shy, quiet 18-year-old living with her mom in suburban Long Island. Camille’s passion is skateboarding – a pastime of which her traditional mother strongly disapproves – and one day, scrolling through Instagram, she happens upon a group of female skateboarders who regularly gather on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Taking up her board and screwing up her courage, Camille makes a leap that is geographically negligible but psychically epic, opening up a big wide world of adventure, friendship, competition and heretofore unknown reserves of inner strength and resilience.
In many ways, “Skate Kitchen” plays out like previous coming-of-age tales of peril and self-discovery, from “Kids” and “Thirteen” to last year’s “The Florida Project.” As in those films, director Crystal Moselle here strives for unadorned realism, beginning with a cast of mostly nonprofessional actors. (The filmmaker reportedly discovered Vinberg – an accomplished skateboarder in real life – by way of her Instagram feed.)
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Director: Andrea Berloff
Actors: Brian d'Arcy James, Common, Domhnall Gleeson, Elisabeth Moss, Margo Martindale, Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish
Country: USA
