Summer. Sigh. Such a distant memory.
The Kings of Summer is a coming-of-age tale about --
Wait.
This isn't supposed to be serious?
Let's try that again.
Joe's dad is overly controlling and every word that comes out of his mouth is coated in a thick layer of sarcasm. (Sounds like me, to be honest.) Patrick's parents baby him and actually give him hives. Biaggio is -- well, no one really knows who Biaggio even is, but he sort of just follows along with Joe and Patrick and, okay, he's good with knives. Basically, Joe and Patrick hate their lives at home, and decide their best option is to run away and live in the woods.
(To be honest, I wonder how many kids attempted to do this very thing after the movie came out.)
(Not going to lie, I'm slightly tempted to try it myself.)
The Kings of Summer is an indie/comedy/???? film about a few boys who want to be men, and while there are certainly holes in the plots and the characters aren't always easy to like, there's something about it that makes me feel oddly inspired. Maybe that's the point.
The film starts off with all these ~indie~ shots, and I was sort of confused because I knew it had premiered at the Sundance Festival (and obviously Sundance Festival = indie, what are you talking about) and yet the trailer had led me to assume it was going to be another one of those teen movies that is blown ridiculously out of the proportion -- but I carried on anyway, because, hey, Patrick broke the same ankle as me and Alison Brie is in it, and I like to pretend I'm indie sometimes.
The thing about The Kings of Summer is that there's a wonderful mixture of comedic scenes and those indie film sequences where someone is running through a field of wheat and then their hand is artistically blocking out the sun, and I liked it. The comedy was nowhere near laugh out loud funny - not like Monty Python, sorry kids - but the air of the majority of the film is light and fun and makes you believe Joe, Patrick, and Biaggio are completely invincible.
(My favourite such parts: "What time is it?" "Who cares? We're in the woods! There's no time in the woods." ...... "What are you talking about? Of course there's time in the woods! You look at the sky and the higher the sun is, the later it is in the day." Or when Joe and Biaggio go hunting and instead come back with perfectly cooked chicken, and Patrick says, "I'm just surprised you found a live chicken in these woods.")
Of course, the first hour of the film is nothing but the boys building their house out of scrap wood and random things, trying (and failing) to hunt, exploring the woods, jumping off of cliffs, and generally having a great time. At this point, everything is perfect. Their parents are worried, sure, but the boys have run away and they're not worried about anything, so why should I?
Look at them. Having a grand old time.
And then crap hits the fan.
Because (and this is obviously a spoiler, so y'know, avert your eyes if you don't want to find out what happens) Joe has a crush on this girl, Kelly, and he invites her to dinner at his house in the woods so that he can impress her with all his amazing manliness (he does have the beginnings of a beard, which I find extremely odd, because the kid's fifteen and he can grow a better beard than my twenty-two-year-old brother) -- so she tags along and she sees all the sights and does all the fun things, and then -- and hold onto your hearts, lads - she goes after Patrick instead.
Maybe I was supposed to hate Patrick at this point - because Kelly liking Patrick starts a whole chain of events that eventually leads to Joe being the only one left in the house and actually killing and skinning a rabbit in order to eat and, yeah, a freaking snake gets into the house, and Kelly takes Joe's dad to him and they get attacked by the snake and Joe tries to protect her and BIAGGIO TO THE RESCUE, except then he gets bitten and wow, the snake is venomous and whoops, off to the hospital they go -- and Joe's still mad at Patrick and Kelly still doesn't like Joe better, and it's like.
I was so glad.
Because this movie didn't end up being about Joe becoming a great man in the woods and finally being able to get the girl by saving her from certain death. Kelly didn't choose Joe in the end. And she shouldn't have - she shouldn't have had to fall into Joe's arms after realizing he was such a hero. I'm sure she appreciates what he did for her and I'm sure they'll be great friends, but for me, the film was ultimately about growing up and realizing the value of your friends and parents, and it stayed that way.
There was real-life fruit ninja, and some really, really weird lines from Biaggio, and a fight that broke my heart, and Joe basically turns into his dad for a few scenes, and it's just - it was great. And I loved it. And it was oddly reminiscent of the Lord of the Flies (... if I had ever actually watched that movie -- they eat someone, right?), and the music was just A+++, and that's all I really wanted.
Here's my favourite scene, for your viewing pleasure (and I almost feel as though this one scene encompasses what the entire movie is about, but, whatever):
Yes, Biaggio is the one dancing.
And because this all sort of turned out too serious for my liking, here's a thing I made, entitled What Would Happen If I Tried To Run Away.
In the end, I rate The Kings of Summer at a total of four cookies out of a possible five. I loved it and will definitely be watching it again, but until then --
FRUIT NINJA.
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