Matthew McConaughey plays Moondog, an extravagant stoner who writes poetry and lives life on the edge, without committing to anything or anyone but always sticking to his own ethical code. His lyrical world is peculiar, always toeing the unpleasant but with a definite touch of beauty and transcendence. Like his writing, Moondog’s life does not follow any rules, almost always under the influence of alcohol and drugs. He is well able to arrive late and high as a kite to his own daughter’s wedding, and to love an endless number of women with whom he will only share a moment of his existence. Forever is not a concept that exists in his philosophy of life. Tomorrow is a utopia that may never come. The only things that matter to him are the present and the excess, wherever that might take him.
 
Harmony Korine, who became famous at a young age in cinephile circles for writing the raw and poignant script of Larry Clark’s Kids in 1995, has combined his acting career with his well-known one-of-a-kind work as a filmmaker. With Gummo (1997) and Julien Donkey-Boy (1999), Korine unsettled viewers who dared to see his movies. And when it seemed that his work drew nearer to a more commercial style with Mister Lonely (2007), he then went on to make the unclassifiable Trash Humpers (2009). His next film, Spring Breakers (2012), was just as hard to classify, but won instant cult status and ended up acclaimed and hated in equal parts. The same can be expected from The Beach Bum. Subversive and lysergic to unsuspected limits, Korine’s latest film is bound to divide the crowd. But that is Korine, perhaps the most authentic “enfant terrible” of American indie cinema.
 

2019: SXSW
2019: Gijón International Film Festival