Heartland: Last Days of Summer
Evocative storytelling, lovely photography and a strong cast buttress this drama about an Indianapolis teen's tortured would-be romance with the girl next door.
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There’s a haunting, elegiac tone to “Last Days of Summer,” a drama set about 20 years ago in the Indianapolis Eastside neighborhood of Woodruff Place. Writer/director Alex Rodgers’ debut feature film is buttressed by evocative storytelling, lovely photography and a strong cast in the tale of a teen's tortured would-be romance with the girl next door.
Celina Lamon plays the title character, Summer Johansen, a troubled young woman who seems doomed to follow in the footsteps of her mother, Kim (Teresa Lynn). While her father is mostly away on business, Summer’s mom is a serial philanderer who regrets being tied down by a husband… and even a daughter. Her inability to hide her disdain for being a parent has gradually rubbed off on her kid.
Summer feels not just unloved, but untethered.
Summer has her own running tab of failed romances, including with fellow high school students and even a teacher(!) who all eventually discarded her. But the one guy she’s never seemed to take much notice in romantically is the boy next door, Ricky Gallo (Refik Dogruyol), who is seemingly from a wholesome family but has his own shelf load of troubles.
Ricky and Summer are friends, of a sort. They hang out doing teen things, drinking Malbec wine they’ve swiped from Summer’s mom or watching trashy action movies at the local movie theater where Ricky works. (Actually The Historic Artcraft Theatre in Franklin, practically its own character in the movie.) Summer is fully aware of Ricky’s feelings, but they both pretend not to notice.
Kim is currently carrying on a dalliance with Michael (Tim Bensch), a buff dude who likes to run around the neighborhood shirtless. He clearly expects their booty calls to turn into something more serious, and strife occurs when it doesn’t.
Interestingly, any potential racial schism — Kim and Summer are Black, while all their male flings are white — is left uncommented upon by the film.
Ricky’s family is a pretty happy one with the usual middle-aged griping from his parents. But when his older brother, Johnny (Arman Dogruyol), turns up on a motorcycle after years of virtually no communication, it throws their whole balance off. Johnny’s got major James Dean vibes, a young man who doesn’t seem to have any solidified plans for himself but will be sure to look damn cool while doing it.
Johnny’s the sort of guy who doesn’t actively look to get himself into trouble, but it follows him around like a stray cat sniffing something tasty.
The cinematography by Kurtis Bowersock is flat-out terrific, its hazy hagiography lending a deeply felt sense of a time and place. Realtors should use this film to show off Woodruff Place, one of Indianapolis’ oldest planned neighborhoods that fell into a socioeconomic slump in the middle of last century but has since rebounded into one of the city’s best-kept secrets.
Similarly, the musical score by Justin Graff is achingly earnest and emotional, strings underscoring a sense of doomed remembrance to all of the characters’ travails.
The narration by Ricky makes clear that things ended badly with Summer, and now she has taken on the role of a ghost haunting his past, not without some fondness. Refik Dogruyol brings weighty notes of regret to his dialogue-free moments, which is something novice actors often flub by trying to overdo.
At about 72 minutes long, “Last Days of Summer” left me wanting more. Ricky and Summer’s longing, while touching, needed to be fleshed out more. The two characters wind up competing with each other to see who is the main character. I also wanted to see more about the poisonous relationship between Summer and her mom, which seems to be at the root of all her anguish.
But this is a handsome and poignant picture from a promising young filmmaker that shows off Hoosier locales with unabashed affection.