During 2017, the year that vetted Timothée Chalamet to be a part of the next generation of Hollywood “stars” (if such a term can really exist anymore in the post-#MeToo era and the associated debunking of glamor), somewhere amid the fanfare of Call Me By Your Name and Lady Bird, Elijah Bynum’s debut at South by Southwest, Hot Summer Nights, was lost in the shuffle. And it’s not just that it wasn’t reviewed even half as favorably by critics as the former two, but also that the high-gloss nature of it–something akin to the Bret Easton Ellis school of filmmaking except actually carried off well (which we all know The Canyons didn’t achieve)–isn’t something often appreciated in the present.
That said, the story takes place on the Cape Cod of 1991, and is narrated by the voice of an observing and admiring preadolescent who seems to have no bearing whatsoever on anything other than randomly telling this story. As he explains of Cape Cod’s fluctuating population, “There were the summer birds, and then, there were the townies.” Daniel (Chalamet), isn’t either, a fact that makes him both invisible and incredibly noticeable. Sent there by his mother to stay with his Aunt Barb (in the townie category, naturally) after exhibiting several instances of what is classified as “a cry for help” after his father dies, Daniel doesn’t take quite so effortlessly to the new environment. That is, not until after showing his loyalty to the town’s best-loved and most-used drug dealer, Hunter Strawberry (Alex Roe), when he comes into the convenience store and demands that Daniel hides his weed so as to avoid scrutiny from an incoming cop. With this immediate bond formed through unspoken trust, Hunter invites Daniel to hang out with him or, rather, asks, “You get high?”
After Daniel’s first time getting high sometime around June 28th, for according to the movie theater marquee, City Slickers, The Rocketeer and Naked Gun 2 1/2 (released June 28th of that summer) are all playing at the same time, he starts to grow up fast. In part because he’s fallen in love with everyone’s favorite object of beauty, McKayla (Maika Monroe–maybe it’s more of a detriment to success that her name looks like Marilyn’s), and in part because he has nothing to lose at this point after already having lost the most important person in his life, Daniel, or “Danny,” as Hunter affectionately nicknames him, is eager to take risks. One such example being his sudden desire to get in on Hunter’s business, while also still pursuing the girl who he soon learns is Hunter’s sister. Despite the fact that Hunter and McKayla are no longer on speaking terms due to some drama that occurred when their mother was dying, Hunter is still adamantly protective–threatening Daniel’s life, essentially, if he should ever go near his sister again. “She’s gonna make it out of here,” he insists, in that very James Dean fatalistic sort of way. And, though some might not find the comparison palatable, there is a certain Rebel Without A Cause meets Shag: The Movie quality to Hot Summer Nights.
Even the title itself possesses a bland derivativeness (Wet Hot American Summer, Suddenly, Last Summer, Smiles of a Summer Night, One Crazy Summer, The Long, Hot Summer–you get the idea). And Bynum will be the first to admit that there is a referential aspect to the coming-of-age nature of his first feature. Citing Stand By Me as one influence for the way the story is framed from the youth perspective, Bynum noted that the overall vibe of “borrowing” comes from “the story, in a way, [being set in] this bygone American era that adds the nostalgia without it feeling pastiche necessarily.” As he also phrased it, “I wanted the movie to be self-aware without being satire, or being obnoxiously, ironically self-aware. I wanted the characters to be aware on some level—not the actors, but the actual characters they’re playing—to be aware of where they fit into the world.” For Daniel, the only place he can now imagine fitting into is the small underworld of Cape Cod, bringing in his unhinged Jewish cousin, Taylor (Thomas Blake Jr.), to help with the task of moving more inventory, provided by one of the few suppliers of said underworld, Dex (Emory Cohen). Reluctant to take it to the next, higher stakes step at first, Hunter is suddenly motivated by Daniel’s business acumen.
Throughout the intensification of Daniel’s relationships with both Hunter and McKayla, there is an undercurrent of foreboding, not least of which is provided by the “out of time” soundtrack, which intermixes mid and late 80s cuts (Baltimora’s “Tarzan Boy” comes to mind) with more alternative-inspired 90s fare. For anyone who lived through this strange transitional phase, it can be attested to that, to quote Bynum, it was “in this kind of weird dead zone, where it’s not the 80s music–like Bruce Springsteen and Rick Springfield–but it’s also not like Nirvana.” That the transition of one decade into another is also a mirror of Daniel’s own transition from innocence to corruption is a fairly obvious metaphor. Slick titles in neon pink lend the residual 80s quality that the early 90s still couldn’t let go of, as well as a faint and unwitting homage to both The Informers (again with the Bret Easton Ellis) and Drive. And with the 80s runoff into ’91, it goes without saying that cocaine is still muy importante. Which is precisely why Daniel soon wants to break into that avenue as well, causing a greater divide between his driven-by-emotionally-stunted needs and Hunter’s desire to, well, stay alive.
To that point, more than a romance, the movie is a bromance (Chalamet can’t help but make everything homoerotic), detailing the rapid rise and fall of a friendship that is heavily based on its two participants being outsiders, and suddenly feeling as though they’ve found a kindred in the other. But when that one primary thread falls away, the rapport becomes rife with deficiencies stemming from betrayal, all perfectly timed with the imminent arrival of the now historic Hurricane Bob, which, in Massachusetts terms, hit Cape Cod the hardest.
With every strand of the plotline reaching a fever pitch along with the storm, it goes without saying that Bynum has an uncanny Shakespearean sense of the importance of weather in storytelling. That, and an unapologetic grasp of the tragedian (you know, like Lana DR) that will surely take him far. Maybe even into the so-called next generation of Hollywood along with Chalamet.
