hopscotchee: austin abrams score: 44.5 rating: tv-14 time: 90 minutes
wwwoooooohhhheeeeeee, did we not know what we were getting into. naively seeing all summers end as a young tye sheridan and young kaitlyn dever movie, our interests were peeked to see their acting skills as wee lil' babes. additionally up for the surprise, we decided not to read anything about this movie before watching it. looking at it now with hindsight, we are not sure if that was the best of ideas. then again, we don't NOT recommend going into a movie not knowing what it's about, though. the utter shock we had watching it did create a sort of rollercoaster type of entertainment that may have compensated for a lot of the lacks in the film. but, fair warning: don't just go into this film thinking it's gonna be some type of rom com.
to the film's credit, one thing that they did really well was honing in on that dumb boyness. we can't really assume where this credit goes to - it could be the director, the actors, or just the general atmosphere on the set to make the boys feel comfortable enough to be boyish. we'll give it to a mix of all three, we guess. truly though, the (spoiler) chucking on the ice cream tub, with no concern of who will have to clean that up, on top of the misogynistic banter about getting to third base, alluding heavily to their future POA - problems of america - status, is all so, so boy-like it was as if you decided to film three local boys over the summer. particularly in the midst of their awkwardly clammy, puber-tizing middle school ages. the cringe was thick, and the annoyance was real. on the safe side aka the other side of the screen, let's just hope that they are not like that and that we can applaud the actors for really keying into these behaviors. and - EWGH!! - when tye's character, conrad, goes to buy condoms!! we are not here to parent the characters on screen, but that was not handled well. needless to say, the uncomfortable acting abilities that we witnessed were well portrayed.
secondly, grace's nails were cautiously kept after, aligning well with the films apparent continuity, however, noting that she never had chipped nails, are we suppose to assume this relationship and storyline all happened within a week. (spoiler) what a catastrophic fatal love bomb in one week!! along with that example, all summers end was sprinkled with more than one of those head-scratching fill-in-the-blanks. another example is how (spoiler) tye's absent mom, that we only see caring about him at breakfast time, finds out where he's been spending his days. sure, maybe this isn't the farthest gap we could've pointed out, but the fact of the matter is we don't know. did tye talk about his new girl?? did tye mention where he was going when he left out his bedroom window?? did he leave a sticky note on his door or something?? is it just momstinct (mom instinct)??
but the sets. no. first of all, that old, abandoned mattress house was too neatly staged to pass as what it was trying to perceive, an old, abandoned, dust ridden, filthy house. secondly, we are not sure if this was the same place or not (you can just put that problem with one of the many plot holes we listed above), but the other abandoned house that tye and kaitlyn's characters burn the old, horse toy in the front yard dealt with the same staging problem. if these places were honestly untouched by their owners, the conditions wouldn't be like they decided to depict. the dirt on the floor wouldn't be out of the way for the actors to walk, it would be all over. plus, the condition of the furniture wouldn't be as sturdy as it was in the film. like, c'mon. equally offensive, however changing up the complaint, older tye's house at the end of the film was so soap-opera-y and way too set-like. that thing looked fake as fu-.
overall, this film felt like an adult (possibly going through some reflective, sad shiz) decided to take the main idea of 'loss of innocence' and break that into a young adult novel-esque movie plot surrounding (spoiler) sex and death. oh yeah, and also the (spoiler) ending of friendships. so, yeah. jeezy christ!! all summers end was a real heavy lifting champ with 'em somber themes. and the sad mama deer and baby deer part will always be slowly crushing our hearts.
-- thanks, austin xo
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