Review of The Kings of Summer (2013) by Spangle — 24 May 2015

As a sucker for coming of age films, I most certainly enjoyed The Kings of Summer. It was quite funny throughout and really hit all the "teenage angst" markers that it should hit. The problems in the film were relatable and really handled well.

The writing is pretty good, not great, but it works well throughout and the direction here is pretty good and the story winds up being told well. The acting is really good. I loved Nick Offerman here, he really played the role of the father really well and brought a certain aura to the role that worked really well.

In addition, the characters throughout were really well-developed and their stories made sense. They felt like real human beings everyone knows, rather than just cardboard cutouts of teenagers. However, my main problem here deals with some highly improbable things happening in the plot.

I do not want to spoil at all, so I won't say it outright, but for coming of age films, they need to be grounded a bit in reality and not overly outlandish. In this case, this one seems highly unlikely at times, which is odd since the characters and problems are so real and well done.

Yet, the plot itself just throws it off a bit at times and really needed to be more realistic.