“The Kings of Summer,” by first-time writer Chris Galletta and directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts, may be rated R (for excessive language which nevertheless feels natural, but exploitative), but it’s firmly in young teen territory, that time when boys are beginning to get enthralled by girls but are still slightly afraid of them. Joe and his best friend Patrick (Gabriel Basso, of “Super 8”) are devoted to each other, with a friendship built on years of ridiculous adventures together—from swimming pool Olympics to sneaking out in a parent’s car at only 9 years old—but in their high school, they’re freshmen at the bottom of the totem pole. They’re invited to a kegger party, but only because of older girl Kelly (Erin Moriarty, of “The Watch”), but even when they get there, they’re unsure of what to do. Drink? Dance? Just hang out? What is the protocol here?
But at least they’re out of their respective homes, where Joe and Patrick have visceral, infuriated reactions to their parents. There’s Joe’s authoritarian father Frank (Nick Offerman, of “Casa De Mi Padre” and “21 Jump Street”), beginning to date again after Joe’s mother’s death and always heavily punishing Joe for his mischievous behavior, marginalizing his son and all of his choices. And on the opposite end are Patrick’s parents, Mr. Keenan (Marc Evan Jackson) and Mrs. Keenan (Megan Mullally), supportive and sensitive to a fault, so awkward and overprotective that Patrick is literally breaking out into hives around them. So although Patrick is hesitant to leave his parents behind (“What the hell are we talking about?” he asks Joe when the suggestion of living in the woods comes up), he’s eventually on board. They need time to themselves and a place to themselves. They need this summer.
So with weird kid-turned-third friend Biaggio (Moises Arias, of “The Secret World of Arrietty”), cash and canned goods they’ve stolen from their parents, and a sense of purpose, Joe and Patrick traipse into the woods, into a home they’ve built from items pillaged from construction area trash bins, a children’s playground slide, and other random materials they’ve hobbled together. And so begins weeks of doing things boys do: exploring, foraging, making a fire, drinking rain during a thunderstorm, signing secrecy pacts, literally yelling “freedom” from the top of a cliff, and deciding to “be our own men.” It all feels very “Dead Poets Society,” but with more wild snakes, attempts to catch fish, and hip-hop songs on the soundtrack.
How long can this picturesque, youthful return to nature go smoothly? That’s when “The Kings of Summer” starts getting melodramatic, both to its benefit and its detriment. The film’s premise is slight, of course, and the conflict of kids versus parents is straightforward enough. But in that opposition we’re able to better understand both parties: Offerman as the frustrated, unsure father of Joe, a consummate prankster, is believable and sympathetic, especially in his scenes when college-age daughter Heather (Alison Brie, of “The Five-Year Engagement” and “Scream 4”), while Mullally injects the right kind of bizarreness into her role as Patrick’s neurotic-but-loving mother. And the young actors hold up their end of the bargain, too. Although Robinson as Joe sometimes seems too clever for his own good (kind of like a young James Franco), Basso uses his large, gangly body to good effect, and Arias is appropriately ridiculous, from his ridiculous dance moves to enthusiasm when cutting down foliage with a machete. He’s the spice in this soup.
So it’s not the performances that negatively impact “The Kings of Summer,” but the uneasy combination of the filmmaker’s unnecessary flourishes (too much slow-motion, too many trendy songs on the soundtrack) and flat, clunky dialogue, like when Joe says of Frank, “I want to get out of there before I end up anything like him,” and of their forest experience, “If anything was missing from all this, it’d be a woman’s touch.” But those issues don’t derail “The Kings of Summer” entirely; if anything, they’re slight bumps in a film that otherwise makes a solid case for giving both parents and their kids the benefit of the doubt. Youth is a challenging, fleeting, great thing—and “The Kings of Summer” does quite a good job capturing it.
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