Review of Summerland

As a gay man myself I was interested in watching this movie because I heard it was supposed to challenge gay stereotypes often presented in movies. However, it turned out to be a movie super full of itself for thinking it was busting gay stereotypes while adhering to plenty and patting itself on the back for thinking it's not. It's a privileged-attractive cisgender white gay man's version of "breaking stereotypes". I even read an interview with one of the stars Chris Ball about how his boyfriend advised him not to get in-shape for the role because not all gays needed to have abs. Mister Ball is clearly in-shape compared to your average person and if he thinks not having a complete six pack but otherwise still being an in-shape conventionally attractive gay man is in someway breaking stereotypes, it truly shows how privileged his background is and homogeneous the nature of his social circle must be. There is nothing wrong with being in shape, but the fact he thinks he is making a statement by simply not having abs is somehow groundbreaking is really sad and tone deaf. This seems to be a movie you would really enjoy if you are part of one of those all white homogeneous gay social circles, but probably won't enjoy otherwise.

On top of all that, the acting is bad and the story cliche. It basically seems like a slightly above average student film, and for all I know it might be. There is another movie called Summerland also released this year (2020) which I was originally unaware of being a different film from this one. However, this other Summerland movie is good and this one is terrible. Props to these individuals for making a movie and it looks like they had fun doing it, but something groundbreaking it is not. For me it was barely watchable.