Minding the Gap (2018)

Minding the Gap is an intimate, vérité documentary that follows three young men — bonded by skateboarding — as they grow up in a declining Rust Belt town. Over several years, the film captures their daily lives: the freedom and joy of skate sessions and the physical poetry of tricks, the small-town routines, and the mounting pressures of work, relationships and fatherhood. What begins as a portrait of friendship and escape gradually deepens into a raw exploration of trauma, masculinity and the ways family patterns repeat. If you watch Minding the Gap you’ll experience a film that moves between energizing skate montages and quiet, often painful confessions. The camera is close and unvarnished: handheld footage, candid home videos and long conversations create a sense of real-time intimacy. Expect emotional highs — the exhilaration of riding through industrial streets with friends — alongside wrenching revelations about domestic violence, addiction and the responsibilities of adulthood that strain their bond. The overall effect is both visually kinetic and emotionally heavy. Viewers are likely to come away changed: moved by the friendship and skill on display, unsettled by the cycles of abuse that surface, and reflective about how childhood shapes adult life. The film is powerful, honest and sometimes difficult to watch, but ultimately offers a compassionate, unflinching look at resilience and the cost of growing up.

Actors: Keire Johnson, Bing Liu, Zack Mulligan

Director: Bing Liu

Runtime: 93 min

Genres: Documentary, Sport

7.1 /10 89 /100 8.0 /10 8.0 /10