Griffin in Summer understands that adolescence can feel both ridiculous and world-ending at the same time. It takes a fairly small story and turns it into something winning through tone, detail, and emotional precision. The film is funny without mocking its young lead, and tender without smothering him in sentimentality.
The story centers on Griffin, a teenage theatre kid whose creative ambitions are already larger than the room around him. As he works on yet another self-serious home production, he finds himself newly fascinated by an older handyman, and that fascination starts to blur the line between admiration, projection, and early queer desire. It is a simple setup, but the film uses it well.
What makes the movie so appealing is that it does not rush to define everything. Griffin’s feelings arrive in an awkward, unstable, half-understood way that feels true to his age. The film captures the embarrassment of becoming aware of yourself before you have the language or emotional maturity to process what that awareness actually means.
The comic side also lands. Griffin’s theatrical ego, his self-created artistic seriousness, and the smallness of the world he is trying to escape all make for quietly sharp humor. Yet the film never treats him as a joke. Underneath the comedy is a real sympathy for how young people build elaborate identities in order to survive uncertainty.
Because the story is so modest, it does not always hit with maximum dramatic force, and some viewers may wish it pushed deeper into the emotional consequences of Griffin’s awakening. But that restraint is also part of its charm. The movie is more interested in observation than grand catharsis.
In the end, Griffin in Summer is a lovely little queer coming-of-age film that gets the tone exactly right. It is witty, emotionally grounded, and unusually good at portraying the first confusing spark of desire before it hardens into a clearer sense of self.
Rating: 7/10
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