The Kings of Summer

Amidst a cinematic landscape filled with action-packed popcorn flicks and recycled comedy franchises, this compelling, refreshingly touching, and genuinely funny, low-budget independent dramedy stands tall. A coming-of-age story, The Kings of Summer revolves around three conflicted teenagers: Joe (Nick Robinson) and Patrick (Gabriel Basso)—best friends since childhood—and eccentric tagalong Biaggio (Moises Arias). School's out, leaving the trio caught between tantalizing freedom and being imprisoned by overbearing parents. So they decide to run away to build their own cabin deep in the nearby woods, and live off the land. It's not that difficult to borrow tools, scavenge and salvage materials from construction sites, and dumpster-dive for scraps—particularly when there's a Boston Market restaurant within walking distance. Wielding axes and swords, the boys are intrepid adventurers, but also naïve adolescents who have some important life lessons to learn. Conflict surfaces most often between gawky Joe and his cranky, still-grieving widower father (Nick Offerman), and there's an interlude of unrequited love that threatens the trio's friendship and tests their loyalty. The film boasts vivid, bucolic montages, as the boys race through pastoral fields, climb trees, splash around in the river, jump off quarry cliffs, and stage an impromptu jam session—all of which was captured when director Jordan Vogt-Roberts took his actors into the woods near Chagrin Falls, OH, and filmed them fooling around and improvising. A simple yet also timeless tale that is both emotionally engaging and irresistibly likeable, this is highly recommended. (S. Granger)