Director: Michael W. Gray
Writers: Michael W. Gray, Jennifer B. White, Marc Prey
Stars: Steve Guttenberg, Cullen Moss, Mia Talerico
Synopsis: Older Mikey reflects on a past summer when he met “the” girl + scored a spot on the team. All while his US army dad is missing overseas. A heartwarming coming-of-age family film, humor, baseball, summer love, and a puppy who saves the day.
A wise person once said, “Every movie that is made is a miracle.” In some cases, I think that is true, but not in the case of the movie American Summer. I couldn’t believe that an indie coming-of-age rom-com made in the 2020s could be so platitudinous. The romance between the young leads isn’t touching or believable. The comedy is so deadpan and corny that it would make the writers of Nothing But Trouble recoil and wipe a bead of sweat from their foreheads. The filmmakers and creative team should have taken the right steps as leaders to make this a movie worth watching.
Heartthrob of yesteryear Steve Guttenberg plays the older version of the main character, Mikey. He spends an afternoon on his porch reminiscing about that special summer before high school, the summer when he got “the” girl, won a spot on the travel baseball team, grew out of boyhood, and more. Guttenberg’s Mikey is 60 years old. The filmmakers tried to hide things in the scenes set in the past that would reveal they were actually filmed in the present day (Yes I’m talking to you PS5 and Nerds gummy clusters!). This movie should have been filmed with a budget that allowed it to be set in the ’70s or early ’80s.
Young Mikey (Logan Gray) and his friends encounter some interesting characters, such as Buck Mulvaney, a member of the travel baseball team who has deep insecurities due to how his father treats him and the fact that he looks like a super senior. In one scene, Mikey tries to give Buck the benefit of the doubt, and the two talk about baseball. A few scenes later, Buck tries to run off with the girl Mikey is crushing on, Kelly, played by Mia Talerico. There are a few dream sequences including young Mikey and Kelly that felt like they were added in to fill the run time.
Co-writer and director Michael W. Gray is a first-time director who decided to pay some sort of homage to his favorite coming-of-age films while adding a little good old patriotism through the subplot of young Mikey’s father being lost at war overseas. Don’t even get me started on Dan Lauria playing Mikey’s grandfather. They must have thought, “Let’s cast Dan because he was Kevin’s dad in The Wonder Years.” The story even glosses over the fact that the grandfather is a compulsive gambler who gives his grandsons lazy advice. In a better movie, there would be more exploration of the grandfather’s character, going into detail about his addiction and perhaps having him do more than simply apologize to his grandsons for their mother being so hard on them.
Most of the characters are underdeveloped and underutilized in this movie. I think this is because of both the lack of budget and the half-baked script. Mikey’s mom doesn’t have any dialogue that feels heartfelt or meaningful. She lashes out at him for keeping to himself during a time-sensitive moment involving one of his friend’s whereabouts. This friend later passes out in the woods due to hypoglycemia. Does he learn from this as the film progresses? No. They simply move past it, and he continues to serve as the picture’s “comic relief.”
I think Gray can churn out a better script and an all-around better film. Instead of relying on plotlines from other movies and writing dialogue they think sounds accurate to what kids would say, perhaps they should make a rom-com with adult characters and draw from experiences of their own.
