'Minding The Gap' A Review

Minding The Gap is a documentary about two young skateboarders in Rockford, IL. The film begins by introducing Zack and Keire as two skateboarders unprepared and mostly uninterested in adulthood. We follow them as they glide around the city on their skateboards and talk through their childhoods and potential futures. What begins as a typical skateboard-doc becomes something much more emotional and complex as we discover both Zack and Keire as well as the filmmaker Bing Liu came from abusive homes. Skateboarding is a way to rebel but also to take back control of their bodies. Time passes and the Zack and Keire stumble towards the future and something like adulthood.

Subjects Zack and Keire are remarkably at ease and open in front of the camera, perhaps because Liu is also a local and somewhat of a peer, they share their history and surprising(sometimes even to them) insight about life and their own lives. Zack has an undeniable charm and Keire has a nervous affability that make them both captivating subjects. Abuse is the real subject of the film, skateboarding is only the entryway but serves as a running metaphor for escape and hope. The real message of the film, the real topic, is handled with remarkable care and dignity, rarely has there ever been a film that investigates abuse with the complexity and lack of judgement that Minding The Gap displays and perhaps because of that it actually reckons with and elucidates some real truth.

Visually the film is surprisingly assured, with meditative flowing skateboarding shots and striking slice-of-life moments and casual interviews that bring you into the world of the film in a way a "message" documentary rarely does.

Having been born and raised in Rockford there is something particularly gripping about the film as I recognize almost all the locations as well as the subjects. But the themes, the ideas, the behaviors are universal. If you aren't someone like Zack and Keire you knew someone like them growing up. If you didn't struggle to(or aren't struggling now) to become an adult I don't believe you.

One of the biggest surprises of 2018.

Don't Miss It.