A-Z Movies, K: "The Kings of Summer"

Recommended by:
Patricia (friend)

Movie Stats:
Released 2013 (USA)
American, in English (some minimal translated Spanish)
Director - Jordan Vogt-Roberts
Stars - Nick Robinson, Gabriel Basso, Moises Arias

Plot Summary:
Three boys, Joe (Robinson), Patrick (Basso), and Biaggio (Arias), facing typical teenage troubles, run away from home to live in the house they’ve built in the forest.

Warnings:
Blue language; violence (of the hunting sort) toward animals.

Bad Stuff:
Some of the editing was choppy. I got confused a few times, thinking that the DVD had skipped when really it was a slightly clunky scene change.

Occasionally I felt like it was trying too hard to convince me that it was artsy and deep.

There’s not a lot of resolution to it. By the end, the characters’ problems aren’t wrapped up in a nice tidy bow. While that’s not a problem for me personally, I feel that it would bother a certain set of movie goers.

Good Stuff:
It’s really funny.

While a lot of it is unrealistic (the way Joe’s father, Frank [Nick Offerman], treats the police without repercussion, for example), the important things felt very real. The boys go out in the woods and behave exactly as I would expect boys to, punching each other, playing with swords, and growing wispy facial hair. I loved that, after a pretty nasty fight, Joe and Patrick basically grunt at each other, flip each other off, and their friendship is fixed. That sums up male friendship fairly succinctly.The highlight of the film was the way the boys interacted.

It has so much joie de vivre. Even when things don’t go as expected for the boys, there’s this sense of accomplishment and self-fulfillment that’s infectious.

The Verdict:
This film had me from the opening scene. It’s simply delightful. I laughed a lot. It’s fun and sweet and charming. I really can’t say enough good things about it. This is one of those movies that I would love to own so I can watch it whenever I need a pick-me-up. 

I give it 4.5 stars.