Sundance 2022: James Ponsoldt returns to Sundance with family friendly 'Summering'

SUMMERING
Kids

Director: James Ponsoldt
Screenwriter: James Ponsoldt, Benjamin Percy
Starring: Lia Barnett, Madalen Mills, Eden Grace Redfield, Sanai Victoria

Sundance Synopsis:It’s the waning days of summer for four friends Dina, Lola, Daisy, and Mari, who will soon be going their separate ways when they all start middle school. While planning how to spend their last weekend together, they stumble across a mystery that takes them on a life-changing adventure. The friends make a series of discoveries that are as much about solving the mystery as they are about learning the hard truths of growing up.

Review: In 2012 directorJames Ponsoldt made his Sundance Film Festival debut with "Smashed." I remember interviewingMary Elizabeth Winstead, who apparently grew up near me, for the film in one of the upstairs areas of shop on Park City's Main Street. It felt like sitting down with a friend at a coffee shop to talk about this, that, and nothing. I loved that.

Ponsoldt returned to the festival in 2013 with "The Spectacular Now" and in 2015 with "The End of the Tour." In 2022, he returns with "Summering," a family-friendly film (Sundance is recommending the movie for those 10 year old and older) that was shot in Midvale, a suburb of Salt Lake City.

I'm hesitant to describe "Summering" as a gender-swapped "Stand By Me," but the comparisons are hard to avoid. Unlike "Stand By Me," "Summering" is set in the contemporary world and sees a foursome of friends on the verge of starting middle school celebrating the last days of summer. The group venture out to nearby wooded area on the edge of town, their own Terabithia, to place items on and around a small tree that has become a shrine ofknickknacks. Near the tree they discover a body. The girls decide to try and identify the man before notifying police. It's a little nonsensical. So is childhood.

The young cast,Lia Barnett, Madalen Mills, Eden Grace Redfield, and Sanai Victoria, is amiable and I'll never turn down an appearance from Lake Bell. A few local faces pop up as well. Seeing Colleen Baum nursing drinks in a bar took me back to our days at Brigham Young University (that's a joke, I think).

Where the film stumbles is its tone. I understand that the movie was made with a younger audience in mind (I'll remind you here that "Stand By Me" is rated R for language) and that inevitably means that the film is going to approach its more adult themes with a very light touch. But "Summering" is so soft that finding a dead body, having an alcoholic parent, tweens wandering into bars, children showing adults a photo of a dead man on their phone, and the like are either ignored entirely or downplayed to the point that there isn't enough tension.

"Summering" is perfectly enjoyable. It shouldn't be.