The Kings of Summer
*½ out of ****
Directed by: Jordan Vogt-Roberts
Starring: Nick
Robinson, Gabriel Basso, Moises Arias, Nick Offerman and Erin Moriarty
Running time: 93
minutes
In the scope of
independent features that go on to achieve a more mainstream success, there are
the good Sundance films and there are the bad Sundance films. Good Sundance
films succeed due to a variety of factors, such as an ambitious vision (Beasts of the Southern Wild), innovative
storytelling (American Splendor),
original characters (The Station Agent)
and a sweet, underdog gumption (Little
Miss Sunshine).
The bad Sundance
films, on the other hand, are self-indulgent and quirky to the point of
distraction (think Napoleon Dynamite
and facsimiles thereof). Some of these efforts have misunderstood, misanthropic
young adult males searching for a way out of a humdrum lifestyle, usually
through women, alcohol, male bonding and other forms of autonomy.
The Kings of Summer typifies that bad Sundance film. It’s a
coming-of-age tale filled with good intentions and fine young actors and TV
veterans. However, it is charmless and slight, replacing humour with
awkwardness and emotional depth with sullen characterization.
The three friends who
comprise the film’s male contingent are Joe (Nick Robinson), Patrick (Gabriel
Basso) and Biaggio (Moises Arias). Joe fantasizes about girls but is in a
mellow funk after the recent death of his mother. He also struggles to connect
with his stern father, Frank (Nick Offerman, who offers the film’s only
chuckles).
Patrick, meanwhile,
feels enslaved to his home, annoyed by the cloying niceties of his parents
(played by Megan Mullally and Marc Evan Jackson). Biaggio, gets minimal
backstory but stands
around to provide idiosyncratic comic relief, like speaking in non-sequiturs and swinging a machete furiously. These obscure jokes rarely hit a funny bone.
The high-schoolers
decide to escape the dog days of youth by fleeing from their bungalows. Together,
they build a house in the woods just outside the Ohio suburbs. Living in the
wilderness, the trio agrees to explore and live off the fat of the land.
Soft-focus montages
of building a cabin, cliff jumping into a pristine lake and other enactments of
male bonding ensue to a twee indie soundtrack taken right from an American
Eagle commercial. In town, the parents dawdle around, not caring much
about the safety and livelihood of their children.
The Kings of Summer attempts to provoke the same feelings of wistful
teenage nostalgia that much better films – Stand
by Me and Moonrise Kingdom, for
instance – have already captured with more wit and emotional resonance.
Director Jordan Vogt-Roberts
does what he can with Chris Galletta’s weightless, meandering script. The
screenplay reaches a level of superficiality that would be at home on the
Disney Channel, including forced wisecracks that linger awkwardly onscreen, taking one out of the story.
These two characters
yearn to escape from the suburban squalor; however, their home life is not rotten
at all. In last summer’s infinitely superior Moonrise Kingdom, the motivations behind Sam and Suzie’s rendezvous
away from adult life were clear and understandable: he was searching for pure
friendship after being bullied, while she was imprisoned by bullish parents who
could not connect with her.
The strain pressed
upon the two male protagonists here is unclear, hence lending their vying for autonomy
a lack of urgency and purpose. The Kings
of Summer is a coming-of-age tale that lacks both a sense of adventure or
emotional truth.
It is a slight relief
to say that the film, about young teen boys adventuring in the wilderness, has several story similarities
to Mud, which is still playing in
theatres. Leave these Kings alone and
go see Mud instead.
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