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SUMMER '03
Director: Becca Gleason Cast: Joey King, Andrea Savage, Jack Kilmer, Paul Scheer, Stephen Ruffin, Kelly Lamor Wilson, Logan Medina, Erin Darke, June Squibb MPAA
Rating: Running Time: 1:35 Release Date: 9/28/18 (limited) |
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Review by Mark Dujsik | September 27, 2018 Writer/director Becca Gleason's Summer '03 can't quite decide if it's situational comedy about a dysfunctional family or an achingly honest look at what it's like to be a teenage girl on the verge of womanhood. The latter parts are appropriately aching and honest, especially as played by Joey King, whose character learns a good deal about love and sex, family and friendship, and why it's not a great idea to drive a golf cart at high speeds through a cemetery. She plays Jamie, whose eventful summer begins with the death of her paternal grandmother (played by June Squibb). Before dying, grandma decides to get a lot of things off her mind. Jamie's grandfather wasn't actually the father of her dad Ned (Paul Scheer). Grandma never liked Jamie's mother Shira (Andrea Savage) because her daughter-in-law is Jewish. As for Jamie, grandma had her secretly baptized as a baby and offers some final advice to a happy life: learn how perform oral sex well. The first piece of information leads Jamie to the local Catholic church, and the advice leads her to look at Luke (Jack Kilmer), a good-looking seminary student who's about to be ordained, with a plan in mind. Meanwhile, her dad has run off to find his real father (an anti-Semitic German man), leaving Shira to take care of all the funeral arrangements and the rest of her family to struggle with the aftermath grandma's final words to them. There's a lot going on here, and every time Gleason's screenplay shifts away from Jamie's sexual awakening and romantic troubles and difficulties with her friends, the movie seems to enter an entirely different mode. Jamie's confusion and assorted relationships keep things grounded in some reality, but it's strange that such a simple story needs to find grounding in the first place. Her family members don't feel like an extension of Jamie's story, and their various troubles, played for laughs or easy conflict, definitely don't maintain the sincere tone of Jamie's side of things. King excels in the lead role, sympathetically moving from the thrill of discovery, to the pain of heartbreak, and the anger of feeling dismissed. Summer '03 belongs to her performance. Sadly, the movie itself doesn't exclusively belong to Jamie. It's too often shared with the uncharacteristic and sometimes wacky exploits of her family. Copyright © 2018 by Mark Dujsik. All rights reserved. |
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