The audacious new film from writer-director Sean Baker (The Florida Project, Tangerine), stars Simon Rex in a magnetic, live-wire performance as an aging porn star who returns to his Texan home town. Turning up unannounced on the doorstep of his estranged wife Lexi (Bree Elrod), the once-successful Mikey Saber (Rex) is broke, desperate and down on his luck. After Lexi reluctantly takes him in, he resumes his hustling ways, cycling around town selling weed to help pay the rent. When he meets 18-year-old Strawberry (Suzanna Son) at the local donut shop, he sees her as his ticket back to the top, and pulls out all stops to win her over. Part hangout movie, part horror story, and with undeniable yet subtly woven traces of Trump, Red Rocket is a darkly funny portrait of a narcissist that adds to Baker’s evolving tapestry of the margins of modern America.

The Florida Project and Tangerine were some of our favourite films of their respective years, so it’s a joy to see Baker deliver on that promise with the Cannes-selected Red Rocket. Simon Rex has won deserving praise for his tremendous lead performance as anti-hero Mikey — a character you love to hate but can never take your eyes away from.