Director: Jordan Vogt-Roberts
★ ★ ★ ★ ☆
Unsatisfied with their home lives, teenagers Joe (Nick
Robinson) and Patrick (Gabriel Basso) venture out into the local woods to build
their own house. They're joined, for reasons never quite explained to either
them or us, by the distinctly odd Biaggio (Moises Arias), and the boys spend
their days hunting and enjoying their freedom, while the search for them
continues at home. Treated rather shabbily on its UK cinema release, The Kings
of Summer cries out to be discovered on the home market. At first glance it’s a
very well constructed coming-of-age tale, but what separates it from many of
its ilk is a surprisingly zany tone, which often sends it spinning off into
surreal moments of comedy, and the results can be very funny indeed. The three
young leads are great, but with all the adults played by comedians, it’s here
that many of the biggest laughs are to be found, with Nick Offerman especially memorable
as Joe’s uncompromisingly foul-mouthed father. But the comedy doesn’t come at
the expense of the emotional investment, and these are characters we really
come to care about over the course of what is a first rate indie drama.
No comments:
Post a Comment