‘Summering’ Review: A Gently Meandering Generation Alpha Riff on ‘Stand By Me’

variety.com:

Guy Lodge Film CriticOn a balmy Labor Day weekend, four best friends find a dead body in the woods, the discovery marking an end of innocence as adolescence beckons.

If you think you’ve seen this one before, “Summering” makes no apology for the resemblance. Right down to a stolen pistol shoved in a backpack, James Ponsoldt’s unhurried, sun-kissed coming-of-age drama plays as an all-female homage to Rob Reiner’s “Stand By Me” — a reference that won’t mean much to the pre-teen girls at whom it’s aimed, but may make some of their parents a little misty-eyed.

Yet nostalgia may be the strongest emotion engendered by this breeze-blown dandelion seed of a film, which nods to the bittersweet complexities of growing up and confronting adulthood, but never gets as far as fully dramatizing them.

As such, “Summering” is a pleasant enough watch for patient, thoughtful children and their elders alike, but something of a disappointment from writer-director James Ponsoldt — returning to his sweet spot of mild-mannered indie filmmaking after the misfire of 2017’s Tom Hanks-starring thriller “The Circle” and a subsequent recovery period in TV.