Minding the Gap

In Rockford, Illinois, Bing Liu has been filming his friends Zack and Kiere on and off their skateboards for ten years. Weaving archival footage, interviews, and incredible skate videos, Liu chronicles in simple and poetic fashion the lives of his inner circle of friends and family, revealing the damaging circumstances in which they all grew up. Less a film about skate culture than an unusual coming-of-age story, Liu’s feature documentary is fresh and powerful.

“There’s . . . something deeply resonant in the way Liu captures a time when young men are both child and adult, especially if they have open wounds from their difficult youth that may have stunted their maturity. . . . Without underlining or overly highlighting its themes, Minding the Gap is a film about modern millennial masculinity in a way that breaks the stereotypes and asks us to confront not only cycles of abuse but how they shape both the memories we want to suppress and the friendships we never want to forget at the same time.”—Brian Tallerico, RogerEbert.com

“Roaming through ruminative passages filled with recollections and fears, the movie mirrors Boyhood in its capacity to capture the maturation process over a lengthy period. But where that movie provided a specific look at white, privileged American life (albeit one beset by divorce and other complications), Minding the Gap captures the opposite—what it means to feel marginalized and repressed, while struggling to grasp the words to fight back.”—Eric Kohn, IndieWire