The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Capture and verse
Director, poets take a snapshot of one warm day in Los Angeles with interesting, unusual ‘Summertime’
A love letter to Los Angeles and, especially, spoken-word poetry, “Summertime” certainly stands out from the pack of summertime theatrical releases.
“This morning the sewer waters smelled like butterscotch, and I found a beetle flattened into the concrete of Koreatown. Scooter versus scarab, squashed skidmarks shattering emerald green.”
With those rhythmically delivered words from Mila Cuda — who also serves as the film’s lead poetry editor — “Summertime” opens with shots of the water and scenes of the city. It is a successful bit of tone-setting for what is to come.
This film will not be an ideal choice for those who need a concrete narrative. Inspired in part by Richard Linklater’s 1990 effort “Slacker,” “Summertime” shines with the stories of 27 young, diverse adults intersecting over a hot day in L.A.
Thus, it’s a fine choice for those looking for something different. This is a nontraditional work that’s entertaining, satiating and, at times, invigorating. It can fall flat at times, but it’s largely a bit of fresh, artistic air.
The seeds for “Summertime” were planted a few years ago when its director, Carlos López Estrada, attended a spoken-word poetry workshop featuring 25 L.A. performers and put on by nonprofit organization
Get Lit: Words Ignite.
In his director’s statement, he says the poets took on what it means to live in the city today, and what they offered was “vibrant, loud, and sincere. With words, they painted a window into a city I had never seen before.”
And while “Summertime” — from Ashlandbased Good Deeds Entertainment — may resonate
most personally with those intimately familiar with the Southern California metropolis, you need not be an expert on all things Los Angeles to appreciate the film.
Throughout its roughly 90 minutes, you will meet a skateboarding guitarist, a fed-up fast-food worker, a graffiti “tagger,” a limo driver, a couple in therapy and many more.
There’s also a rap duo
‘SUMMERTIME’
Where: Theaters.
When: Now.
Rated: R for language throughout and sexual references.
Runtime: 1 hour, 31 minutes.
Stars (of four): ★★
(Bryce Banks and Austin Antoine) that goes from street-performance obscurity to superstardom — once they start rapping about how much they love their mothers, which is charming — in this one day. Their journey is an example of the “magic realism” of the film, as its production notes refer to it.
The closest thing “Summertime” has to a lead arguably is Tyris Winter. The version of Tyris in the movie is a devoted Yelper who’s outraged when a Venice cafe called Loaf not only won’t give him a cheeseburger but charges him about $15 for dressed-up toast. We check back with him several times in the movie after he embarks on what becomes a meaningful quest for a cheeseburger.
Winter, who is Black and identifies as queer, is but one small illustration of the cast’s diversity. According to the press materials, 82 percent of the cast is from the LGBTQ or POC communities — or both.
If there is one unifying theme in “Summertime,” it is “home.” Characters reminisce about it, pine for it, search for it. Even if a viewer doesn’t relate strongly to any one particular person on the screen, he or she is likely to relate to some of their feelings expressed by his eclectic collective.
For all it has going for it, know that “Summertime” can be, well, a bit much sometimes. After a man (Ryan Moore) on a city bus admonishes two women for kissing in public, he is given an earful in the form of a poem from Mila — not one of the aforementioned women — about exactly how gay she is herself.
Hey, the guy was out of line, but we can’t help but empathize with him as he becomes increasingly desperate to get off the moving vehicle. As powerful as the poem is, it doesn’t feel like the punishment fits the crime.
The opposite can be true, however. “Summertime” saves its best for late in the affair, as a woman, Marquesha (Marquesha Babers) — who’s seeing the same therapist as the couple — unloads on a man whose smile used to make her day but who rejected her, making it very clear her weight was a major reason why. Now, THIS man gets everything that is coming to him.
This colorful work’s myriad meaningful moments also include women in red dresses dancing in the street as Paolina (Paolina Acuna-Gonzales), an 18-year-old Mexican woman, tries to convince her still-protective mother (Gabriela De Luna) she’s responsible enough to make her own decisions.
This unique film adds to the varied resume of Estrada, who impressed greatly with 2018’s “Blindspotting” and then was a co-director on this year’s visually arresting animated Disney film “Raya and the Last Dragon.” (Actress Kelly Marie Tran, who voiced the titular character, is an executive producer on “Summertime.”)
Shot over only 17 days in L.A., “Summertime” ends perhaps the only way it could have, with several of the characters enjoying a striking nighttime view of the city as the backdrop for a poem about high aspirations from a limo driver (Raul Herrera Jr.).
“I got a pocket full of dreams, and no one’s holding me down. I’ve been looking at the sky wondering why we don’t know how to fly yet. Spread your wings. Your fingers are feathers and your breath is the wind, so fly. “