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The Kings of Summer Movie Review

The Kings of Summer is a 2013 independent teen drama film directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts and starring Nick Robinson. This is a very uneven, but solid flick.

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“You’re right, it’s a classic kidnapping.

They took our children and the canned goods and pasta“

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Three teenage friends decide to leave their dysfunctional families and live an isolated life in the woods. They eventually learn that one cannot run away from their family. This movie is a perfect watch for teenagers, but not much for adults. It’s also rather limited in its appeal given that it depicts a very specific teenager experience with dysfunctional families as a background. I couldn’t personally relate to it, but I still found it to be quite heartwarming.

Nick Robinson was well cast in the main role and during this period he was in a lot of similar films. He was very good here and his arc was solid. I found his moustache hilariously dumb, but that was exactly the point given his age. Biaggio and Patrick needed more development, but the overall dynamic between the boys was fun and well developed.

I did not quite care for the romantic element in this story. It was not needed and it was rather generic. It had its moments, but overall it didn’t work for me. I liked Nick Offerman as this grumpy father, but he was a bit too one-note at the end of the day. The film went out of its way to negatively depict these parents, but the third act thankfully mixed things up more.

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The Kings of Summer is tender in tone, very well scored and so well shot with a couple of very cinematic sequences and nicely depicted details, especially in the forest. Even more could have been done with this premise, but the director elevated the pedestrian script to greater heights in certain areas, but only to a degree. The dialogue is pretty good, but the characterization really needed to have been stronger to carry it to the finish line properly.