It has been over two years since I added The Kings of Summer to my “to watch” list of Summer Movies. I was fairly confident I would like it, and even so it took me this long to finally press play. But I was right, this film is beautifully made, and was a real joy to watch.
The Kings of Summer tells the story of a fifteen-year-old boy, Joe, fed up with his life at home with his father, who convinces his best friend Patrick to join him to secretly build a house for themselves in a hidden clearing in the woods. They run away from home, vowing a bond of friendship, secrecy, and autonomy.
It’s a story about independence, obviously. These teens are aching to get out on their own and away from their parents’ hovering, micro-managing, and arbitrary rules. By creating their own space they give themselves a space that all teenagers crave, a space to be who they want and do what they want. “No parents, no one telling us what to do. We make the rules.”
But beyond that, this is a film about masculinity. This is not a generic teen “coming of age” but a boy who desperately wants to become a man. To our protagonist, Joe, independence is intrinsically tied to a gendered adulthood. He inserts “being our own men” into their declaration of independence, he calls on them to hunt their own food “like men,” and when Biaggio, the offbeat third member of their trio admits that “actually I don’t really see myself as having a gender,” Joe asserts that yes, that is a bit of a problem for him.
Fortunately, while Joe may be hung up on these expressions of masculinity to prove to himself, his father, and the world that he is a man, and thus deserves the respect and independence that he believes belong to men, the film itself allows more fluid expressions of independence, gender, and adulthood to exist alongside Joe’s hyper-masculinity. While Biaggio’s comment about gender is largely ignored, nothing is made of it, either. He is allowed to have said it, to live this ambiguous identity, without it actually changing anything about the friendship dynamics, or the way of life, that they have created in the woods.
In this way, The Kings of Summer doesn’t reinforce Joe’s understanding of narrow gender roles, but instead allows each character to come to his own decisions about how to grow up and be independent. For Biaggio, maturity requires allegiance to his friends. For Patrick, making his own decisions (and not letting Joe simply take over for his parents). And for Joe, demonstrating competence in front of his father, and having him accept that Joe is on his way to becoming a man.
