Maybe it’s a lingering childhood memory of the classic book My Side of the Mountain, or a weakness for a certain kind of afternoon-daydream movie, but The Kings of Summer fell directly into my sweet spot. The movie doesn’t exist in a real world (please don’t waste energy trying to reconcile psychological motives or social logistics), but in the enchanted realm of a teenage summer. Director Jordan Vogt-Roberts understands this charmed mood, which is why he layers the film with dewy inserts that would not be out of place in a Terrence Malick picture. The result is a nicely bittersweet ode to killing time and patching up differences.
We must begin by buying into screenwriter Chris Galetta’s implausible premise: Three high-school lads build a ramshackle house of their own in a clearing in some woods outside their suburban Ohio hometown. Joe (Seattle native Nick Robinson) has had it with his ill-equipped father (Nick Offerman); both are working through hostilities connected to the death of Joe’s mother. Joe’s friend Patrick (Gabriel Basso) is almost as disenchanted with his parents (Megan Mullally and Marc Evan Jackson), so he joins his bud for the adventure.