Directed By James Ponsoldt

Starring – Lia Barnett, Sanai Victoria, Madalen Mills

The Plot – During their last days of summer and childhood, the weekend before middle school begins, four girls struggle with the harsh truths of growing up and embark on a mysterious adventure.

Rated PG-13 for some thematic material

SUMMERING | Official Trailer | Bleecker Street – YouTube

POSITIVES

As with his work in the tragically underrated “The Spectacular Now”, Ponsoldt cements a profoundly rich and insightful narrative into the psychology of a particular age group, and at least periodically pulls something endearing from it. This time, it’s the resiliency and even ignorance to early adolescence that blinds them into thinking life will always be this easy and that they will always remain friends forever. Because those watching it have learned from the experiences they have yet to attain, there’s an atmospheric element of tragedy to it that haunts these youths with dwindling opportunity, not only in the days remaining of their scholastic summer vacation, but also in the fear of the inevitability that will ultimately come to define each of them. Ponsoldt’s direction at its very best captures the appeal, the coloring, and especially the urgency of the summer season, full of endless possibility and immortality where these friends feel like they can take on the world, and where their small town feels like the center of the universe for what they interpret as the bigger picture. Aside from his work, the range of performances are equally beneficial, with the fearsome foursome of these precocious youths maintaining an organic spell over the audience that enhances their appeal. None of them are first time actors, but they each attain a natural essence in their portrayals that never feels obvious or manufactured from someone off-screen, in turn supplanting more than a few hearty chuckles from my engagement, especially from show-stealer Eden Grace Redfield, who has a future in this business with boldness in facial emoting that is years ahead of her age. Beyond this, the one thing I found refreshing about the film is that it’s set in current day, instead of a past age through reflective goggles. This not only plays into the aforementioned future of uncertainty, but also keeps the film from the visual annoyances or incoherences of having to play to a gimmick that essentially isn’t necessary. It makes their plights all the more relatable to the cause, all the while reminding us of the timeless blanketing of summertime that swaddles us in the blanket of warm weather and friendly adventures.

NEGATIVES

“Summering” feels like Ponsoldt watched “Stand by Me” and “Now and Then” and took from them the aspects that matter the least. I say this because the derivative nature of the script not only points at more than a few glaring instances of familiarity from those films but does little to distance itself from it in the overall execution of its storytelling. This leads to what I can only describe as the most undercooked and misguided film from what was initially advertised that I can remember in recent memory. Instead of nourishing itself in the lighthearted and profound adventures of kids learning life lessons while getting dirty and getting in trouble, the film overwhelms itself with a ghost story narrative that takes far too much away from the focus of the narrative and jumbles the tonal consistencies in a blender for forced consumption. Considering this film is a brief 82-minute exercise, there’s very little time to waste for why any time away from their coming-of-age stories feels relevant. Yet it continues because much of the first act of the film searches desperately for a unique angle that it only finds in the briefest of examples, before then jumping from rock to rock or scene to scene with the kind of muddled pacing that immediately alienates you from the get-go. In addition to this, overhead narration once again rears its ugly head, this time during said first act, where it’s voiced by Barnett, but in a way, that’s distracting to her age range. This instead probably should’ve been spoken by an older representation of her character but doing that would’ve soiled the intention of a current day narrative. It’s contradictions like this that hindered the accessibility of the film, making it feel like it’s constantly at odds with itself in crafting something memorable for the occasion. This is most apparent with the adult characters in the film, who are given some monumental and life-changing instances in their lives, but rarely followed through with meaningful results. I can understand the film being from the children’s perspectives but considering what is going on in the adults’ lives affects them directly, failing to flesh this out further feels like a blundering mistake, and one that could’ve simultaneously helped pad the run time out further towards a run time it deserved. Finally, while the girls themselves are performed exceptionally by the talents of their gifted ensemble, the characterization that surrounds them leaves them in a hole to fight their ways out of almost immediately. An hour after the film, I can’t say much about these girls beyond one sentence outlines that feel like a series of scattered ideas, instead of one cohesive psychology, especially in the case of Sanai Victoria’s Lola, who is ultimately defined by her favorite TV show (Ghost Hunters), so much so that it becomes a plot point in the exhaustion of the ghost subplot that abruptly takes over the film’s focus. With more memorable personalities and backgrounds, these girls could feel all the more relatable and lived-in, but as it stands, they’re just as ambiguous as the body that they stumble upon, but more distracting because they actually have lines of dialogue to alleviate such a problem.

OVERALL
“Summering” is a creatively undercooked and tonally disjointed descendent of better films that it can’t even remotely touch, let alone fill their shadow. Though Ponsoldt is trying his hardest to cement something nostalgically profound in the grip of a current day narrative, the execution eventually overwhelms him, with a baffling final result that comes and goes with all of the temporary glee and painful inevitability of summer’s past.

My Grade: 4/10 or D-