‘Snack Shack’ is The Most Nostalgic and Exuberant Coming-of-Age Gem of the Year So Far
Adam Rehmeier’s latest comedy recaptures the fun and epic summers we had as teenagers
A great coming-of-age movie set during a memorable summer is easy to watch and hard to make. You have to create a time capsule with flawless accuracy, capture the vibe that defined it, and make it alluring and irresistible to a broad audience. Still, it can all crumble and collapse on one tiny mistake before you even get to plot and character. I’d even say that those two are secondary. Atmosphere, with a capital A, is everything.
Writer-director Adam Rehmeier pulled a Houdini recently and delivered one of the best coming-of-age films since The Way Way Back and The Kings of Summer. Snack Shack (titled somewhat misleadingly) sucks you in from its first rapid minute and puts you under a spell for nearly two hours for a ride that’ll bring back the memory of your best summers when all that mattered was friendship, girls, and having fun.
A.J. (Conor Sherry) and Moose (Gabriel LaBelle fresh off of The Fabelmans fame) are joined by the hip at 14 and 16, respectively, living fast and rash in Nebraska City. We first meet them at a betting parlor riding high on adrenaline (while sucking down on brown-filtered cigarettes like they’re popsicles) due to a winning streak of bets on dog racing they can’t seem to get enough of. They’re on a field trip, already late from the school bus their classmates are impatiently waiting on, their cab is gone, and the only person in the parking lot is a middle-aged man having a breakdown. They ask him for a ride for an easy 50, nearly crash, and then lie through their teeth to their teacher about where they’ve been like pros. This is only the first five minutes of Snack Shack, but you already feel that you not only know these troublemakers but once you were them.
The year is 1991, giant Nike logos, neon t-shirts, and old-school sneakers are everywhere, and the kids throw around “fucks” like they get pocket money for it. Moose and A.J. are true hustlers though, with an energy and creativity that don't seem to run out ever. Remember when you felt like you could conquer the world by 4 PM and still had juice left in the tank to party all night? Yes? No? Well, these two sure sell that being young was the best thing in life, and if you didn’t cash in on it, you missed out big time.
The boys also brew their own beer in secret hideaways around the house, slowly orchestrating a business plan to sell it in order to have an epic summer rolling in cheddar and hot girls’ beds. However, their dream scenario gets spilled (quite literally) when they get busted by their parents and are told to find a decent job for the summer. That’s when their older friend, Shane (Nick Robinson from The Kings of Summer), returns from his military tour and tips them off about an auction for the snack shack at the community pool where he works as a guard. The two immediately fancy the idea, win the auction, and develop a business model that turns ridiculously successful on the first day. But it’s not entirely smooth sailing from there as the arrival of a mysterious hot girl in town begins to screw up their operation as well as their friendship.
Perhaps I said too much already, but Snack Shack’s appeal has little to do with its plot. That plays out quite conventionally (save for one unforeseen twist), but it’s the relentless exuberance and vitality that Rehmeier captures and maintains with irresistible charm (mining his own beloved memories).
Living vicariously through his characters, we’re constantly reminded of how easy, full of potential, and carefree life was as teenagers — or at least that’s how we choose to remember it — even with all the immature drama that came with it. There’s a special joy and excitement you only experience to its fullest when you’re in the middle of your formative years. You don’t know it yet, but it’s a feeling that you’ll rarely live through the same way as an adult, if ever. Snack Shack is aware of this and smartly commits to recreating it without being preachy or judgemental about its characters' decisions.
Rehmeier’s raw yet universal approach (a carpe diem mentality most of us religiously lived by at that age) sets a tone rooted in a past that most of us millennials shared growing up. The smoking, the drinking, the gambling, and the drugs come off natural because that’s what they were in that era. We all did it because it was hip and cool and sexy, an integral part of faking our way into adulthood a little too soon. I mean, what's adolescence if not a trial for pretending to be a grown-up to later realize that being an adult never lives up to its hype? Smartly, Snack Shack doesn’t try too hard to lecture or give us hard-earned wisdom and lets their characters screw up as much as it lets them win — and that's how it actually succeeds in delivering some subtle truths about life and relationships.
And it does so with a carefully picked cast that shares a warm chemistry from the get-go. Besides our two protagonists, the parents (David Costabile and Gillian Vigman couldn’t be more age-appropriate or hilarious if they tried), the bullies, the child customers, and basically every character who shows up here are perfect to a T in a low-key way. There’s no star performance. No one steals the other's thunder but rather amplifies the central impact and vibe the movie tries to encapsulate.
There's a point in the story when the love triangle almost shifts into soapy cliché territory, but Rehmeier maneuvers out of it with a steady hand to make his way to an ending that unexpectedly breaks our heart before warming it up again with a sweet finale. Summer might be a few months away, but Snack Shack is already a huge contender for it (and the entire year, too) since coming-of-age comedies don't get much better than this.
You can buy or rent Snack Shack on Amazon Prime and Vudu.
Last week I reviewed Netflix’s Ripley series for Looper, a stylish and singular adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s famous antihero, Tom Ripley.
If you want to support The Screen, the best way to recommend it to someone who’s into pop culture is by sharing posts like this one above.
I just finished watching this and was really taken with it. At first, I found the two lead character unlikeable pricks but as the film went on and we got to know these guys I began to care about what happened to them, especially A.J. who, at first, I thought was a bit dopey, but turns out to be more intelligent and in touch with his feelings than Moose. The character of Shane was really well done as well. I think everyone has had that older, mentor-type figure in their life that they look up to and Nick Robinson did a great job.