★
High school graduates wrestle with love and friendship during their final summer together before heading off to college.
Classification: 15
Netflix’s latest attempt to deliver a satisfying romantic comedy again falls flat on its face with this shallow, uninspired and mundane splintered tale of various teenagers experiencing their last summer before college. Cliché after cliché with tedious characters and lifeless storylines, director William Bindley delivers a vapid portrayal of adolescent liberation. Themes of romance, careers, and uncertainty of the future are present throughout most of the film’s central storylines but never elevates to anything beyond modern teenage melodrama.
While the intentions may have been to create a similar experience to far superior films such as Dazed and Confused or Wet Hot American Summer, The Last Summer meanders its cast through glorified situations with no real drama or stakes. Every character is triumphant in their endeavours, from the most relatable to the most pathetic and shows how the script just wants to divulge in fantasies instead of properly address this crucial period of a young adult’s development. The Last Summer presents a idealised world where the vanity of its characters is rewarded and very few opportunities to allows for any believable pathos or character development. There are no real standouts in the cast, with the majority of the stars coming from various young adult orientated television shows, The Last Summer intends to capitalise on the same alternative reality that these same shows have created.
While most of the storylines mostly explore romance there are some storylines that held potential if allowed for proper development. Sosie Bacon’s arc as Audrey may have had the only satisfying conclusion but there in lies with issue with The Last Summer, that it spreads itself so thin with the various character arcs that very little feels worth it. The characters of Griffin and Phoebe portrayed by KJ Apa and Maia Mitchell have the most screen time but their storyline diverges into unbearable soap opera cliché. Every storyline starts in a basis of reality, a new job, new romance but then transitions into pure fantasy. These journeys the characters are taken on can’t hold on to any proper dramatic weight and just leaves the audience aloof to however this film ends.
It feels like I’m repeating myself and perhaps I am but I feel it reflects how hollow The Last Summer feels. There is nothing to latch on to, the moments that could be interesting aren’t given any room to grow and the tedious characters are given way too much of the limelight. 2019 has already offered far more appealing and provoking coming of age stories which have a story to tell, The Last Summer is nothing but a facade of faux teenage vanity.
Director: William Bindley
Cast: KJ Apa, Maia Mitchell, Jacob Latimore, Halston Sage, Sosie Bacon, Tyler Posey
Release Date: May 3rd 2019
Available exclusively on Netflix.
Trailer:
Written review copyright ©CoreyBullochReviews
Images and Synopsis from the Internet Movie Database
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