As the summer officially draws to a close, I will be spending my remaining time at home like I usually do: watching movies. There are certain movies that will always be the best to watch during the summer. They tug at your heartstrings and make you long for that one last dip in the pool or one more ice cream cone to melt down the side of your hand. But what is it that gives these movies the ability to fantasize about catching fireflies in the yard one last time? What makes the perfect summer movie?
Road trip movies, for one, are the perfect summer movie. They remind you all about getting away from home with your family, creating memories, good and bad (usually bad at the time), while driving down the open road with the air conditioner blasting. They make you want to revisit all of those places that you can only really go to, that can only be yours, for the summer. Some examples of road trip movies are, obviously, the "Vacation" movies, chronicling the less-than-ideal road trip. Another great road trip movie that has come out in recent years is "The Way Way Back," in which a trip to the beach and a job at a water park become life-affirming for a teenage boy.
Summer is often the time, at least in movie-world, when new friendships are made. They are usually accompanied by a big life change, such as a move, and they are forged strong by a traumatic or exciting experience that could only be possible during the summer. Are these kids friends once school starts? Who knows. But in the summer, it is impossible for them to be apart. Maybe that's where the campout, or even the s'more, was invented. Of course, the ultimate movie about new summer friendships is "The Sandlot."
Maybe the movie isn't about new friendships, but rather old friendships that have problems. Are the characters being forced to leave their homes by local businessmen buying up the town? Do they have to go on a treasure hunt down an endless chasm and to a pirate ship in order to find treasure to save their homes and their friendships? Maybe the problems are not exactly that specific, but this is what makes "The Goonies" yet another summer classic that I can never miss before returning to school.
One of the greatest elements found in a great summer movie is the need for the characters to get away from home and, usually, their families. They could be running away from something: their responsibilities or their parents. A classic example of this is "Stand By Me," or a more modern approach, "The Kings of Summer," and the adventures those boys make into the woods. They could also be running toward something. In "Moonrise Kingdom," Suzy and Sam are running away from authority, but toward each other and the uninhabited cove they wish to claim as their own. There's something about striking out on your own that is inexplicably connected with the summer.
Through out all of these thematic elements, one thing rings true: The perfect summer movie is a coming-of-age story. It is exactly what we like to think would happen to us all of those years. We would go away and a couple of months later, we would return to school as entirely new people. While this rarely happens in real life, in the world of summer movies, there is no end to the possibilities of what can happen in only two or three months. That magical idea is what brings us back to them again and again, long after our own summers of freedom have run out.
