I just saw a big budget, blockbuster summer movie and I loved it. It had it all. It wasn’t The Myth of the American Sleepover but stay with me. I enjoyed the big budget, blockbuster summer movie because it had action, romance, humor and great special effects. It got me to thinking: “What if a movie only gave you one emotion? Like, what if you walked away with just a feeling? Would that be enough? Would that be entertaining?” And then I saw David Robert Mitchell’s The Myth of the American Sleepover.
I just saw a big budget, blockbuster summer movie and I loved it. It had it all. It wasn’t The Myth of the American Sleepover but stay with me. I enjoyed the big budget, blockbuster summer movie because it had action, romance, humor and great special effects. It got me to thinking: “What if a movie only gave you one emotion? Like, what if you walked away with just a feeling? Would that be enough? Would that be entertaining?” And then I saw David Robert Mitchell’s The Myth of the American Sleepover.
Myth follows a group of teenagers, four in particular, as they try to make the most of their last night of summer in a small Michigan suburb. Yes, there are teenagers in this movie, but I hesitate to categorize it as a “teen movie”. I think it’s too mature for that genre even though some of the characters are barely teens themselves. It’s definitely an independent – a focused, singular vision of one filmmaker. Mitchell creates a world that reminds us of a time where boys still have sleepovers, no one has a cell phone, and information is still written with a pen. Yet this could be anytime. Anywhere. He wants us to remember the quiet moments of our youth rather than the crazy ones, when you remember an entire summer as one experience, maybe even one emotion, and he succeeds.
The cast is a group of unknowns so I felt like I was really meeting these kids, not as characters or archetypes, but as people. Rob (Marlon Morton) is a guy trying to orchestrate the chance meeting of a mystery girl, Claudia (Amanda Bauer) is an unpredictable new girl exploring her environment, Maggie (Claire Sloma) is a determined adventurer straddling girlhood and womanhood, and Scott (Brett Jacobsen) is a college dropout, trying to reconnect to the safety of childhood.
This is a thoughtful and almost meditative film, but it is not slow. Hard to imagine, I know, but when you remember being this young you are invested in their every decision. Even if their decision is to stroll a neighborhood street alone, looking to kiss someone. There’s a deadline too – when the night ends and school starts tomorrow. We know that feeling – a mix of reflection and dread – wondering what you accomplished and what you still might. I got that feeling again watching this movie, although with much less anxiety and much more nostalgia.
I think we can all agree that we still have the same feelings we did at that age, probably more subdued, and definitely not all at once. But I still miss that world – where party means sleepover, where the phat whips are Huffys, and where the most adventurous thing you can do is set out on the last night of summer and see what happens. As one character succinctly puts it, “It’s the kind of thing you miss when you’re too old to do it anymore…”
So yes, to answer my own question, one is enough. I walked away from this movie with just a feeling, and it was great.
–Suzy Nakamura
