Summer Of 8 For Film Night

For my latest film night, I watched to watch something which I hadn’t seen, so I done my usual browse around Amazon Prime to find something. I wanted something like, and saw something called Summer of 8. I checked out the trailer, and it looked like it could be good.

I love coming of age films, I love the Summer, and this is basically both of those two things put together.

It is kind of like your usual coming of age, American high school film. The story line is about a group of friends, about to finish high school, and wondering about what’s going to happen next. Only this is a lot different to something like Dazed and Confused, Animal House or American Pie.

Instead, it only focuses on the 8 main characters, in fact there’s only 9 characters in the entire film (including the main character’s mother). There are 4 boys and 4 girls, who’s all bonded together by their friendship. The lead character is Jesse and has his 3 friends, with his girlfriend Lily being one of the 4 girls. You have all the classic characters, there’s the smart one, two best friends, the funny/idiot one, they’re all there to make up a social group most people will have with their own friends.

The film is only spread out over their last day and night, with the ending coming the morning after. With such a small number of characters, it reminds me of The Breakfast Club or Before Sunrise.

The vast majority of the daytime in the film is shot at the beach, then the night is filmed at a beach house, with the friends drinking and talking. It is about how they are all excited and scared about what lies ahead, how they are all going their separate ways to their colleges, and how this is probably the last time they’ll have this last day together.

I think the film is overall good, but takes quite a while to get into to like the characters. Not a lot happens in films of this type, with a small cast, it’s more about the story line rather than big laughs or lots of action. However once you are invested in the film and the characters, it does grow on you, and by the end you’ll be enjoying it, with an ending which will make you happy.

It’s definitely worth a watch if you like something with a smaller number of characters and a simple but relate able plot. I had not heard of this film before, and now looking around it’s strange to see that so little is known about the film, but if you like coming of age teen films, it’s worth checking out on Amazon Prime.