Summertime: And the Livin’ is Poesy

By Liam Lacey

Rating: B+

Carlos López Estrada, who directed 2018’s Oakland-set Blindspotting, developed this original “spoken word musical” from the work of young Los Angelean poets into a sort of contemporary version of Fame.

Not quite a drama, not quite a performance documentary, it’s a series of raps and poetry performances tied together with a loose narrative, co-created with and focusing on young poets from the downtown, marginally employed, and distinctly non-Hollywood side of the city.

Check out Bonnie Laufer's interview with Summertime director Carlos López Estrada

Over the course of one hot July day in 2019, more than two dozen young artists associated from L.A.’s “Get Lit” collective perform their works in dramatized scenes on buses, in burger joints or roller skating through the street. Their poems address issues of sexual orientation, race, stupid jobs. Though there are perhaps a few too many social justice manifestos and therapeutic affirmations, the earnestness is tempered by the verbal play and by López‘s Estrada’s breezy flow.

The film opens on Venice Beach with a fuchsia-haired woman (Olympia Miccio, who opened for Emma Gonzalez in The March for Our Lives) simultaneously roller-skating and playing guitar while the voice-over recites her ode to the city. That hippie blissful moment ends abruptly when she crashes into a group of cyclists, taking photos of each other on the sidewalk.

PROUDLY SUPPORTS ORIGINAL-CIN

The crash is witnessed by people inside a café, including long-limbed young Black gay man Tyris (Tyris Winter) whose poetic rants are configured as Yelp reviews. Tyris is deeply annoyed that gentrification is making it hard to just get a decent cheeseburger. His quest for his favourite meal weaves in and out of the other character’s stories.

Tyris is accosted by heartbroken Sophia (Maia Mayor) who wants to hide behind him as she’s busy stalking her cold ex-boyfriend. Later, in a bookstore, Sophia performs a poem about wanting to be good at anything from poetry to comedy to healthy eating.

There are more relationship woes as a couple (Walter Finnie Jr. and Anna Osuna) go to a therapist and swap complaints, encouraged by their therapist, who promotes her book, Rap Battle Your Demons.

Not all of it is quite so on the nose. In fact, one scene is entirely incomprehensible if you don’t speak Korean: A conversation leads to a dance number in a Korean kitchen, without any subtitles offered to explain what happened.

True to the musical tradition, there are even a couple of quasi-fantasy numbers. Over a café lunch, an 18-year-old Hispanic woman, Paolina (Paolina Acuna-Gonzales) chafes at her overprotective mother, who warns that red lipstick will cause men to see her as a sexual object. In response, a group of dancers in red frilly dresses steps out and takes over the street.

Working on a corner, aspiring rap duo Anewbyss (Bryce Banks and Austin Antoine) try to get discovered and become an over-day sensation, when a producer tells them to rap about flash money and about something they care about. The pair become instant successes with a rap about how much they appreciated their mothers, though I’m pretty sure Tupac beat them to it a quarter century ago with “Dear Mama.” But that’s poetry for you: it’s always old and ever new.

Summertime. Directed by Carlos López Estrada. Written by Dave Harris, with the entire cast. Now available on AppleTV/iTunes, and on VOD October 12.