Review of The Kings of Summer (2013) by Ryan B — 07 Nov 2013

It's inevitable. That feeling you get when you're watching a movie that you feel was written precisely for you. "The Kings of Summer" has firmly re-established my faith in the notion that there are people writing movies who are interested in people; that just because a theme isn't fresh doesn't mean that it can't offer anything refreshing.

The cast was expertly chosen, the dialogue was uniquely crafted yet not esoteric enough to feel pretentious, and the cinematography used the minimal resources in such a beautiful way that we immediately identified with the grandeur of being willingly "lost" in an arboreal paradise.

"The Kings of Summer" drew many comparisons (rightly so) to Wes Anderson's seminal "Moonrise Kingdom," yet unlike Moonrise, "The Kings Of Summer" is that proverbial punch-in-the-gut which young love ultimately delivers as opposed to Moonrise's first-love-butterfly-euphoria. Where Moonrise builds-up characters buoyed by puppy-love, Kings gives us the sobering reality of love's many false-starts and heartaches.

For as many a similarity of Kings has with Moonrise, ultimately it's what the superb cast does to turn a could-be-clichéd-trope into this year's most effective coming-to-age yarn. Relative newcomer Nick Robinson, playing lead as the angsty-yet-likable Joe who eventually leaves the confines of his brooding father's house of sullen to shack-up (literally and figuratively) with best-friend and also but not-quite as angsty Patrick, played affably by Gabriel Basso.

The true scene-stealers though are Megan Mullaly (Nick Offerman's real-life wife) playing Patrick's almost cultishly deranged mother and the eventual third "King" of summer, Biaggo, played by young Mr. Peepers look-a-like Moises Arias.