THE KINGS OF SUMMER – The Review

THE KINGS OF SUMMER is so innocent and well-meaning that it’s hard to throw stones at it — it has the wide, winsome, don’t-hurt-me eyes of a homeless puppy. Unfortunately though, it’s not a very good movie and whenever a certain character is on screen, it’s quite awful. A tiresome and derivative coming-of-age comedy, THE KINGS OF SUMMER tells of three teenage pals – Joe, Patrick and Biaggio – who, in the ultimate act of independence, decide to spend their summer building a house in the woods and living off the land. Their goal is to become free of their overbearing parents. Once they build it, not much interesting happens. They hike to a nearby Boston Market for food and the plot thickens with the arrival of Kelly (Erin Moriarty) at the lad’s lair, a cute teen both Joe and Patrick are interested in. Meanwhile, the boy’s parents are worried sick about their missing kids and organize a search party (though this parcel of land never seems particularly well-hidden).

THE KINGS OF SUMMER has a good creative TV pedigree and confident execution – as well as nifty design, down to its soulful indie soundtrack and woodsy chic – but this suburbia-set ensemble piece steps off the trail into weak melodrama time and again. Jordan Vogt-Robert’s direction hammers in every obvious element in an obvious, sitcommy script. The shots of the boys in the big outdoors are like advertisements for summer camp, and you’ve never seen so many musical montages, so many hands placed meaningfully on shoulders, so many exchanges of understanding looks. What we are really seeing is the director looking constantly at his audience.THE KINGS OF SUMMER is one of those nearly insufferable films that scream “I’m INDEPENDENT, damn it!”

Nick Robinson and Gabriel Grasso as the two best buddies are individually likable, and even as a group they have their moments. Some of their horsing around is comical, but too much of what they do is only too plainly imposed by the filmmakers. This brings me to the most annoying character in any movie I’ve seen all year, and the main reason for my strong dislike of THE KINGS OF SUMMER: Moises Arias as Biaggio, the unpredictable lost boy who spends the entire film spouting absurdist jokes. Biaggio is weird in a movie-ish way only an idea-challenged screenwriter could dream up. His irritating energy has no real destination and his theatrics were clearly meant to make Biaggio the “steal the movie” character, but he’s so over the top it quickly becomes self-aware  – as if he was shouting “look at me, aren’t I quirky!?”. I immediately hated this kid and spent the movie wanting to knock him down and stomp on his neck.

The script for THE KINGS OF SUMMER by first-timer Chris Galetta is bigger-than-life at times – dangerous snakes, underage drinking, fighting over a girl, – and it’s probably meant more winkingly than Vogt-Robert renders it but the end result is almost unconscionably cloying and forced. It seems as though MOONRISE KINGDOM (my least favorite movie of last year) came out during the making of this film and these filmmakers decided to up the ‘whimsical’ factor to ape Wes Anderson’s well-received hit. In addition to some postcard pretty landscapes THE KINGS OF SUMMER offers a few modest pluses: Megan Mullavy is really funny as Patrick’s overbearing mom as is Mary Lynn Rajskub as the deadpan police chief searching for the runaways. Nick Offerman stands out as Joe’s devoted if hotheaded father, but it’s sad watching the way his son treats him, causing him to worry about where he’s disappeared to though the man has recently lost his wife to cancer.

Like MOONRISE KINGDOM , many are praising this precious, mannered, bittersweet comedy-drama, so maybe I’m being too hard on it. If you have an afternoon to blow off or are looking for something non-offensive and have seen everything else, and you have absolutely nothing better to do, by all means check out THE KINGS OF SUMMER.

2 of 5 Stars

KINGS OF SUMMER opens in St. Louis Friday, June 7th at Landmark’s Plaza Frontenac Theater