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Here at CUJO, we love ourselves a good topical film. And as far as hot-button topics are concerned, Our Hero, Balthazar, a new movie from Oscar Boyson and Ricky Camilleri, has it all: coastal elite vs. red state class antagonism, the performance of self on the internet, gun violence, toxic masculinity, MLMs, designer drugs, and more. Written during the internet-addled lockdown days of the pandemic, it follows Balthazar (Jaeden Martell), a wealthy private school teen and online “cryfluencer” from New York City who becomes a obsessed with Solomon (Asa Butterfield), a working-class internet troll he suspects is planning a school shooting, and travels to Texas to stop him.

It’s a crazy premise for a film, but what transpires ends up being a deeply believable exploration of what happens when you bring social media and the attention economy into one of the most challenging phases of life: adolescence. And while the subject matter isn’t funny at all, the film, surprisingly, very much is.

Balthazar hits streaming on Apple TV on August 11, so we’re thrilled to have Oscar, who directed the film, and Ricky, who co-wrote and produced it alongside Oscar, on today’s episode. You might know Oscar from his work as a producer on 2010s indie classics like Frances Ha, Good Time, Uncut Gems, along with the show Chillin Island, and Ricky from his work as a film commentator and video talk show host for media companies like HuffPost, but the pair have known each other since meeting at film nerd camp in their teens. We talk about how they came back together later in life to write Balthazar; why they chose to frame the movie, somewhat controversially, around the specter of a school shooting; and its unsparing examination of what it is like to come of age in a world where attention is currency.

Plus: We get into the challenges they faced making a dark topical indie satire during a period of extreme risk-aversion in the film industry, the story behind the film’s amazing Iceage needledrop, and how they drew inspiration from idiosyncratic coming-of-age films from turn-of-the-millennium like Larry Clark’s Bully.

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‘Our Hero, Balthazar’ and the cinema of growing up online

The Culture Journalist

‘Our Hero, Balthazar’ and the cinema of growing up online