‘Griffin in Summer’ Review: A Teenage Playwright Crushes Hard on the Handyman in This Low-Key Charmer

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A kind of mash-up of 'Theater Camp' and 'Call Me By Your Name,' Nicholas Colia's film — featuring Melanie Lynskey and Owen Teague — observes an adolescent's sexual awakening.

, holds himself to the highest standards. The aspiring playwright chooses to tackle big themes in his dramas, one- to two-act showcases of marital rows and stalled dreams. An excerpt of his latest work,, didn’t resonate at his school talent show, but Griffin doesn’t really care. He dreams of moving to New York and staging his plays at the Roundabout Theatre on Broadway.

While Griffin’s classmates get drunk off hard seltzer and explore adolescent romance, the serious-minded teenager plots regional artistic domination. He partners with his best friend Kara , an aspiring director, to put on his divorce drama about an alcoholic woman and her unfaithful husband. Imagine Ernest Hemingway’sif the subtext became text. The play, in Griffin’s words, reeks of the “irremovable stench” of his character’s faded dreams.

The teen meets Brad relatively early in the summer, while the latter is cleaning the pool and blasting music. Close-ups of Brad’s tattooed biceps signal Griffin’s sexual awakening. Suddenly, the boy armed with lacerating comebacks is rendered speechless. With Brad in the picture, Griffin’s summer takes a turn. His emotional state becomes dependent on his interactions with his new crush. Conversations with Brad become inspiration for his play, which Griffin makes less depressing by adding romantic scenes. The pair’s brief chats also reveal the depths of Brad’s quarter-life crisis. While nursing a drink, he waxes on about life in Bushwick and maligns the artist scene that never understood him.

Griffin’s obsession with Brad clarifies troubles in the teen’s personal life, too, though Colia, who also wrote the screenplay, doesn’t develop this thread with the same attentiveness. Helen is a heartbroken alcoholic dealing with her husband’s potential infidelity. Griffin’s friends inevitably get sidelined for Brad. All those secondary roles would have benefited from more robust characterization, especially Kara, who suffers from Griffin’s controlling tendencies and eventual neglect.

 

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