User Reviews

An adult Conrad Stevens is still haunted by an incident from his first love. He (Tye Sheridan) is 16 when he first meets Grace Turner (Kaitlyn Dever). She tells him that he will love her when he already does. He joins his best friends Tim and Hunter to prank the quiet boring neighborhood. One of the pranks set off a chase by Grace's older brother Eric. It ends badly and Conrad struggles with guilt as he comforts a heart-broken Grace.

The teen sex is unnecessarily voyeuristic. Add to it the dark subject matter, it comes off with an awkward tone which would be better served with as little suggested sex as possible. As for the incident, I buy into it but I expected him to call an ambulance afterwards. There isn't much that they could do at the scene anyways. Did he go to bed right after? It's not the vote that is the fork in the road. It's whatever he did or did not do when he got home. That scene is missing. I love his mother's speech at the end. I would probably cut out the scene at the Turner doorstep after that. After the mother's speech, the movie has dropped the mic and it needed to wrap up quickly. I do like the dark tones but it could do more with Tim and Hunter. This is intriguing if somewhat conflicted.

This movie is not your normal first teen summer love story - it is an interesting lesson in real life consequences. Set in mid 90's small town America featuring 16 year old Conrad (Tye Sheridan) who is bridling under the stifling rules of his worried widowed mother (father recently killed in combat) and doing a typical mid adolescent push for more freedom. On 4 July he sneaks out his bedroom window to spend the day with the family of a girl called Grace (Kaitlin Dever). Conrad likes Grace but is torn between her and his two friends Hunter and Tim who tease him in front of Grace. Next evening the boys roam the neighborhood doing typical pranks including taking a pot plant from the porch of Grace's family. In this instance, her 19 year old brother Eric gives chase with a disastrous accidental collision with a deer. Eric is injured but alive but Hunter persuades Tim (over Conrad's objections) to run away and not report the accident and Eric dies of his injuries.

This now adds a layer of new intensity to Conrad's relationship with Grace - her grieving and family tension propels her into Conrad's arms and his guilt and deteriorating relationship with his mother and friends propels him towards Grace. Mix in hormones and the two move inexorably towards a sexual relationship that culminates in a night together at Grace's when her parents leave town. After sleeping together (a scene handled in a very PG way), Grace leaves for church and Conrad showers in the parents shower as they return home early to find underwear and an empty condom wrapper on the floor and their daughter's boyfriend in their shower - needless to say Conrad has to beat a hasty retreat.

By now he is wracked with guilt as to what happened and meets Grace at their favorite secret hangout place and tearfully confesses as to what happened with predictable consequences. Tye Sheridan is a remarkably genuine actor who, in several teen roles, has brilliantly captured all the complexities of the various quite difficult movie plots he has been cast in. It will be interesting to see if he can transition to proper adult roles now he is in his 20's and not just teen roles. Ditto Kaitlin Dever, she was very convincing in this movie. The story is told as a flashback by the adult Conrad musing on the consequences of his adolescent folly as he watches his early teen own son venture out to meet a girl. It is good message that there were negative consequences from foolish choices.

I liked the actors' jobs. They were believable: I didn't recognize Austin Abrams.

There's a lot of pulling in directions that I found to be spot on.

The reason nobody called an Ambulance is the same reason they didn't stay: If the guy lived, they'd all get into trouble, period. Doesn't really matter who tells what and when. Then after he died, it could have been a secret.

I'd have skipped the sex scene or made it a lot shorter, then further expanding on Hunter's apology. I think it would have been better for her to have found out from the town jerk. (Either way, it wasn't going to go well for Ty's character, unless he just kept his mouth shut.)

Kaitlyn Dever's character, I felt so badly for her. It was a year of many losses, that summer. More POV from her character certain would have been welcome.

I didn't hate the movie, it merely could have used a few tweaks here n there.

I'm always on the lookout for solid, emotional character dramas. When I saw that "All Summers End" starred Kaitlyn Dever of "Short Term 12" fame, I bought in hoping for perhaps a similar result. What I found instead, however, was a film that at best is a collection of teen drama cliches, and doesn't even achieve that middling "success" because the format used is so odd and pointless.

For a basic plot summary, "All Summers End" focuses on the teenaged relationship between Conrad (Tye Sheridan) & Grace (Dever). One night, while messing around with his buddies (played by Austin Abrams & Ryan Lee), Conrad participates in a hit-and-run type accident that leaves Grace's brother Eric (Beau Mirchoff) dead. While struggling with his conscience on whether to disclose this information, the situation is muddied even further by the fact that he and Grace have formed a romantic relationship.

There are a lot of films of this ilk (teen romance) out there, so "All Summers End" needed to do something to differentiate itself. Sadly, this does not happen in the slightest. Despite some great acting talent, the performances never seem convincing (likely because of a script that feels so predictable) or emotional. In the case of Devers, for example, I know this CAN happen (I absolutely revere "Short Term 12" and her performance is equally as strong in it), but it just doesn't happen here. The overall plot is also pretty bland and non-distinguishable: teens with friends, teens in love, mix in some tragedy, teens vs. parents, etc.

The worst part, however, is that not only does "All Summers End" not just coast by as a sappy teen drama, but the format in which the story is told (and thus how we are supposed to relate to the characters) is one of the oddest I've ever seen. I won't spoil everything here, but I will say that the opening prologue and closing coda, if you will, which follow one of the teen characters into adulthood, are about as asinine as storytelling comes. For the life of me, I just cannot understand why the filmmakers would think that these scenes are a good idea or add anything to the emotional cache of the picture.

Overall, I was extremely disappointed in "All Summers End". To be honest, I didn't have huge expectations for the film going in, but it failed to even clear that low bar. Despite being filled with talented actors, this one never gets off the ground and makes an emotional connection. Without any action or mystery, then, that is a death knell for this type of experience.

A weak young love romance starring Tye Sheridan & Kaitlyn Dever from 2017. Hamstrung by a 'on the nose' voice over, we follow how this young couple met (Dever confidently states to Sheridan he'll be her first great romance when they first meet) but things change for the worse when Sheridan, joyriding w/a couple of his knucklehead friends, causes a car they've been eluding to crash which in a state of panic they leave the hurt driver behind (who we'll learn is Dever's brother) to die from his injuries. The romance continues apace (I guess the death of a loved one doesn't supersede one's hormones!) but then the weight of that occurrence soon becomes too much & the inevitable admission must take place. A lot of good actors get lost in what feels like a community theater cobbled enough bake sale money together to make a movie which almost feels like Nicholas Sparks lite (something I don't think any film at this stage of the game wants to be compared to). Also starring Bill Sage & Annabeth Gish as Dever's parents, Paula Malcomson (who I remember from the short lived Caprica series) as Sheridan's mom & Pablo Schreiber in a wasted cameo (I guess!) as an older Sheridan narrating the piece.

Let me start out by saying I am a HUGE romance fan. Especially with stories about young love. Breaking rules, defying parents, all those cliched romance tropes. When I saw the trailer for this one, I was genuinely looking forward to it. I thought it was pretty original for the main character to not really defy his parents but his best friends with falling in love with his love interest. The only thing that worried me was that it contained the whole "liar revealed" cliche that I just can't stand. Having seen it now, it's actually worse than I thought. First of all, his friends are CLEARLY bad influencers and he seems so different from them that it's a wonder why he hangs out with them at all. Then they decide to play this juvenile prank of snatch and run where they steal people's property from their houses and end up getting his love interest's brother killed. He tries to do the sensible thing and stay with him and possibly get help but his so-called "friends" convince him once again to just ditch him. Then he starts getting cozy with the female lead and it was nothing short of frustrating. The whole time I was practically screaming at the screen wanting him to tell her the truth about her brother but of course he never does until towards the end. It makes it hard to get behind the chemistry and love that they share because he's lying to her. And it just makes him look like a terrible person for getting close to her. Then his friends decide to have a redemption arc which the film clearly tries hard to give them but they've been such asses throughout the film that I just couldn't care less. But probably the most confusing part is that by the very end of the film we see him as an adult, now apparently married with a son. And for some reason he's still thinking about his first love. What does it matter at that point? He's years past it and he's apparently gotten over it because he now has a family. How do you think they would feel if they knew you were still thinking about your first love? On the up side, the acting is absolutely amazing and the actors really committed to it. So sadly I'll have to give this one a thumbs down, so to speak. Should have been better, had potential, but couldn't escape being boring and frustrating.

All Summers End is an emotional rollercoaster about a boy named Conrad. He made some poor decisions that led to tragic events, such as the death of his girlfriend's brother. The movie is narrated by a much older Conrad looking back on the one summer that changed everything.