Good Kids follows four teenagers who have just graduated from high school. As the title suggests, they were the good kids in high school, spending all their time preparing for their future and not having a lot of fun along the way. But on their final summer before heading out to college, they decide to try to redefine themselves. They declare it the “Summer of Yes,” and the four rapidly make up for lost time by drinking, doing drugs, having sex, and getting into all sorts of trouble.
The four leads split up in essentially separate stories. Andy (Nicholas Braun) inexplicably finds himself in the position of becoming a sex worker as he tries to get enough money to bring his Indian pen pal to the US. Nora (Zoey Deutch) suddenly starts blooming, and catches the attention of a much older guy who works in the same lab as she does. Space-y martial artist The Lion (Mateo Arias) goes nuts experiment on drugs. And aspiring chef Spice (Israel Broussard)…well, he doesn’t actually get to do much at all. He is mostly left out of the action while his friends go on their personal journeys.
The movie mainly focuses on Andy, which proves to be a problem as the story goes on. The character is built on a sense of privilege that becomes really off-putting. He is the one that initiates this quest for teenage relevance, but he seems to do it out of entitlement more than anything else. His personal journey basically turns him into a jerk, reveling in his own hedonism while chiding his friends for seeking out the same. Perhaps this is the point. Perhaps this is the lesson we are learning. But the film as written doesn't play that out. Andy doesn't really pay a sufficient price for his bad behavior, his friends standing by him, and his summer ending on sweeter notes than he deserves.
There isn't much to the other characters. One of them, Spice, barely even factors into the story. The film takes a weirdly moralistic tone for a teenage romp. The other characters are basically punished for exploring their boundaries. And the film doesn't even give them the time to really study how the experience has at least changed them. The film treats their adventures as little more than youthful mistakes, none of it really mattering in the long run. This is supposedly the most important summer in the lives of these kids, but it's hard to feel that when all is said and done.
The production is thoroughly unremarkable. There are a few nice locations, but little else. The direction doesn't help the comedy in any way, and it gets even worse in moments that are supposed to read sweet. Nicholas Braun comes off really badly in this film. His lanky frame is an immediate advantage in depicting the character's awkwardness, but the performance goes a bit too far. Zoey Deutch is easily the best member of this cast. In spite of being underwritten, the actress acquits herself through a genuinely complex portrayal of a character at a crossroads. Israel Broussard and Mateo Arias are kept on the fringes, barely making an impression.
Good Kids just isn't very interesting. This film should feel kind of like an adventure. This is a story of teenagers testing their boundaries, making the kind of mistakes that so define adolescence. But this feel doesn't make any of that feel important. It feels like a distraction, just a little speed bump on the way to other things. If the film itself doesn't seem to really care about the characters or what's happening to them, then there's very little reason for the audience to care.
My Rating:
