Kings of Summer (2013): Playing House in the Woods
Another coming-of-age movie checked off the list. Another reminder that the fantasy of disappearing into the woods with your friends never fully goes away, no matter how old you get. Most of us only made it as far as running away to a neighbor’s house, not all the way to fully committing to building a home in the woods.
Watching Kings of Summer (2013) in 2026 adds a strange new layer. The cast is now stacked with familiar faces, turning the movie into a pre-fame scavenger hunt that is sometimes more interesting than the story itself. Seeing Nick Robinson, Moises Arias, and Gabriel Basso before their breakout roles, now familiar faces plastered across Netflix and studio films, adds to the film's nostalgia. There are other small easter eggs like spotting Kumail Nanjiani in an early role before becoming a familiar face in stand-up, and Alison Brie fresh off Mad Men. Seeing Nick Offerman as the overbearing father to his teenage son makes the conflict feel more recognizable than threatening.
The plot is straightforward: three teenage boys fed up with their parents run away to the woods to build a house and prove they can survive on their own. The journey even begins with a rumble of thunder, a bad omen according to Patrick (Gariel Basso), that Joe (Nick Robinson) quickly overrules, suggesting things are about to go wrong.
The problem is…not much really does. Survival comes surprisingly easy for these boys in their scavenged home stocked with enough makeshift comforts. Hunger, fear, and real danger are teased and then brushed aside until the end, when the film remembers that actions have consequences.
This film leans heavily on montages and slow-motion sequences, milking every meaningful moment until it turns cheesy. You can only have so many shots of the boys running through the woods, hammering nails, or staring into nature before it feels too forced. The movie insists that each instance of independence is a life-changing moment instead of letting them earn that status.
Biaggio (Moises Arias) is the standout character amongst the three boys, no doubt. He gets the funniest lines, the strangest energy, and the most memorable presence. When he says lines like “I don’t see myself as having gender,” or “I can read. I just can’t cry,” the film hints at something deeper lying beneath the surface of his character. But it never commits. Biaggio serves as comic relief, a delivery system for one-liners rather than a character worth exploring. Roger Ebert similarly comments on this, highlighting “Biaggio’s lines act as glimpses of the more honest and interesting movie that could have been.” It’s a missed opportunity, arguably, I would say, one of the film's biggest.
By the end, the film neatly wraps up every lingering tension. Joe makes peace with his father, and Patrick's romantic mess is smoothed over. Any rough edges the movie created are sanded down, reinforcing how Kings of Summer flirts with rebellion but doesn’t fully commit to the consequences.
Until the next…
Izzy Wild Merl
