Overall Score
Rating Summary
This will be one of many reviews during this year’s Sundance Film Festival, to keep up with our latest coverage, click here.
Director Carlos López Estrada’s followup to 2018’s spectacular Blindspotting goes in a much different direction than many will expect. Instead of being a straightforward narrative feature, Summertime takes more of an experimental approach, based on poetry of 25 diverse young poets from the Los Angeles area who also appear in the film as themselves. While the film does feature several standout moments, it never fully comes together to form a cohesive and satisfying narrative. Despite this, the poets assembled here are definitely talented and audiences will surely connect with and relate to their struggles. It’s just a shame that the majority of the characters are paper thin.
As much as Summertime was about the slam poetry, it was mostly a love letter to the city of Los Angeles. For this reason, it is probably best to think of the film as an experience than a straightforward narrative (though some will be unable to see it that way). The film follows those aforementioned 25 young people over the course of a day in LA. Jumping back and forth and sometimes intersecting, these subplots were dull and often went nowhere as their sole purpose appeared to be to set up the next performance. However, most would stick out like a sore thumb as a result. Though there were some impressive performances with emotional parallels to Blindspotting.
Summertime may not be a film in the traditional sense but despite this, the performances were surprisingly decent across the board. Though some performances were better than others, these young poets are undoubtedly talented and were still somewhat compelling to watch across an authentic Los Angeles.
At the end of the day, Summertime won’t be for everyone but fans of Blindspotting or those looking for a decent escape will find enough to enjoy here.
*still courtesy of Sundance*
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The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.