Posts tagged The Way Way Back

“Way Way Okay”

“Hotshots” looks at a movie!

The Way Way Back is another movie about the coming of age for a teenage boy, only this time it is set at a beach during summer vacation.

The title refers to the third seat in those big clunky station wagons which faced backwards and in which Duncan sits at the beginning and the end of the movie.

Yes, when the movie opens, Duncan is in the car with his mother Pam, played by Toni Collette, which belongs to Trent, Pam’s boyfriend, played by Steve Carell, as they are all driving to Trent’s beach house with Trent’s teenage daughter Steph, where they are all going to spend the summer.

Pam and Steph are sleeping, and there is an uncomfortable scene with Trent and Duncan in which Trent humiliates Duncan and displays what an unpleasant person Trent is.

In fact, later Trent is described as a car salesman with bad taste.

When they arrive at the beach house, which is labeled The Riptide, Betty, played by Allison Janney, who is the neighbor in the house next door, comes over and says, “Let’s have a fun summer!”

Betty has a teenage daughter, Susanna, and a young boy named Peter, whom Betty is always criticizing for a physical trait he has.

However, the summer starts out as anything but fun for Duncan, and the first half of this movie is as painful for the audience as the summer begins for Duncan.

But then Duncan starts spending time at the local water park, where he becomes friends with the manager, Owen, played by Sam Rockwell.

Not only does Duncan begin to have fun, but Owen also takes him under his wing and hires Duncan as an employee there.

Meanwhile, back at The Riptide, the relationship between Pam and Trent becomes strained, especially when they all have to stay inside on a rainy day and play a board game.

You begin to think that all the adults in this film are divorced, but there is one married couple in the story, Kip and Joan, played by Rob Corddry and Amanda Peet, but their relationship isn’t so hot and in fact it contributes to the strained relationship between Pam and Trent.

Who would want to come of age in this bunch of unhappy adults?

The Way Way Back is only way way way okay.

I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”