Directing: B
Acting: C+
Writing: A-
Cinematography: B+
Editing: A-

Summertime is effectively a musical—except, instead of breaking out into song, the characters break out into slam poetry. So, basically, if you’re in the minority population who really loves slam poetry, you’ll probably enjoy this film. If you find slam poetry annoying or grating or it just simply isn’t your bag, well, this movie won’t be your bag either. On a fundamental level, you really don’t need any more detail than that.

But I’m going to give you some anyway! I suppose there’s an even smaller minority out there, in which I would be included, who are relatively neutral on the concept of slam poetry, but compelled by the idea of experimental cinema that integrates the work of said poets, here specifically in the city of Los Angeles.

The director, Carlos López Estrada, previously offered us the phenomenal 2018 film Blindspotting. I keep wondering how much differently my interest in Summertime might have been characterized had I not known it had the same director. Seeing his name associated with the project is basically the reason I chose this as one of the films I would watch in the 2021 Seattle International Film Festival, after all.

And Summertime is a radically different film than Blindspotting, although the two films have one key element in common: a love for a particular city. Blindspotting had a reverence for Oakland, California, and lamented the loss of its character via the process of gentrification. Conversely, Summertime shifts the focus to Los Angeles, and does not seem interested in lamenting anything. Its characters have sad stories, sure, but one of my favorite things about Summertime is how it flips the script on a city that has gotten an unfairly bad rap for decades. More specifically, it’s a love letter to L.A. that, rather than loving it in spite of its reputation as a city of people who never connect with each other, features almost exclusively people who are finding ways to connect.

And they do it through intensely personal, raw, emotional poetry. There is no plot whatsoever. Summertime is instead a pastiche, the camera following one person to the next as they merely cross paths with each other, in so doing creating a portrait of one of the most diverse cities in the United States. And Estrada is having some fun here, a particularly delightful detail being a rap duo finding fame and fortune by rapping about how much they love their moms.

The performers here are fundamentally unprofessional, or at least unprofessional by Hollywood standards, and it’s a big part of how easy it is to have mixed feelings about Summertime. Not every line is delivered in slam poetry verse, and the final result might have been better if it were. Most of the regular lines are delivered in a way that sound amateurish, or unrehearsed, or both. This does not really detract from their clear talent as writers, however—or even as performers. They’re just a different kind of performer. But: this is still a movie, and they really aren’t actors.

And, I still found myself regularly moved by it. There is very little in the way of social justice or commentary on race relations here; the issues the characters struggle with are mostly romantic or within the framework of ambition. Estrada assembles an ensemble cast that is a microcosm of the broad diversity of Los Angeles, and lets that speak for itself. If this film has any particular agenda, it seems to be to showcase an underrepresented (and often maligned) art form.

To be fair, that’s just what Summertime is: a piece of art, and an earnest one at that. Playful at times, too—sometimes even funny. Always emotional, to one degree or another. More than anything, I found it to be sweet. A multigenerational staff of a Korean restaurant dancing to the young one’s iPod music. A couple of young women bonding over heartbreak. An impromptu dance number in the street next to a Mexican woman resisting a request to grant her 18-year-old daughter permission to go to a party. These are all vignettes, which bleed one into the other and otherwise go nowhere, except to serve as a tour through a city’s families and friends. It actually made me miss Los Angeles, something that once upon a time I would have never thought possible.

*If you want to slam Los Angeles these guys will show you how to slam in it.*

Overall: B