For the first half hour of The Way Way Back, I tried to determine what year we were in. I honestly couldn’t tell. Potential stepdad and serious dick Trent (Steve Carell) drives a 1970s model station wagon to a mediocre beach town where the highlight is an 80s model waterslide park. The local pizza joint features a Pac-man machine. Our hero wears Toughskins and rides a bike with a banana seat and streamers. And yet cell phones exist as do cheat codes for Pac-man. This is both the gimmick and the theme: this resort town is stuck in the 80s, just as our hero Duncan (Liam James) is stuck. Stuck in crappy town, stuck without friends, stuck without anything to do and stuck wasting a summer he’d gladly spend anywhere else.
On the exhausting ride to the summer house, Trent’s summer house, Trent challenges Duncan on how the latter sees himself. “I see you as a three [out of 10]” accuses Trent. Harsh. Duncan is sullen, withdrawn and introverted, but nobody should have to put up with that from a future father. And this is just the ride to the beach house; it’s gonna be a loooong summer.
As a 12-year-old kid, I traded pitching in a championship baseball game for taking an RV with my family to Idaho. You might say The Way Way Back struck a chord with me. Summer vacation or jail sentence? You be the judge. Go 
be as sullen as you want, Duncan. After a pointless adult boat trip in which the teen is the only one required to wear a life jacket — oooohhh, that’s gotta hurt — Duncan finally decides he’s had enough. He takes the girl bicycle in the garage and rides it anywhere. Anywhere turns out to be the local water park, another relic stuck in the 80s. The slacker manager of the park is Owen (Sam Rockwell) who takes pity on the kid and decides to take Duncan under wing. Rockwell essentially revives Bill Murray‘s role in Meatballs here acting as summer-idiot-in-charge/funny guy/friend/surrogate father figure. And he’s fantastic. I daresay without Owen’s belief that Project Duncan is worth the investment, we the audience might eventually sour and give up on the kid. I’m glad we didn’t.
There’s a point of Way Way Back in which idiot teens rush one waterside together and all get stuck in the tube. We know the right thing to do here. You turn off the water and see if the kids can unstick themselves. If not, a crane gets involved. This makes everybody unhappy. Owen takes the lawsuit approach, sending one huge kid in the jar loose the tangle. It’s fun, but legally irresponsible. This is the key metaphor if the film — Duncan is stuck, clogged, unable to move, and terribly unhappy. Do you do the right thing and get professional help or do you send the metaphorical fat kid in to jar loose the plug. Fat kid may not be the right approach legally, but it’s definitely the right approach symbolically.
The Way Way Back isn’t for everybody – but if you’ve ever been stuck and in need of a metaphorical fat kid of your own, you’ll find the humor, angst, pain and delight of this film. Much like I did.
Teen Duncan is stuck in a rut
His summer would be acceptable but
Trent is a tool
This town isn’t cool
And his faux father pal is a nut
Rated PG-13, 103 Minutes
D: Nat Faxon, Jim Rash
W: Nat Faxon, Jim Rash
Genre: Shitty family vacation
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Anybody who ever wasted a summer to somebody else’s bad decision
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: The instigator of that bad decision
I had a surreal experience the other night at the Aurora Theater. I sat next to an actor from the film ‘After Ever After.’ He came to the theater to see Rolf Saxon who directed him in ‘After Ever After.’ I explained that I hadn’t seen the film yet (who has? it is still in post!) but that I had read a review of it on the Steel Frog Blog. The ‘Way Way Back’ ‘AEA’ they both have a repeating word in the title. He texted Steel Frog Blog to someone after our bizarre conversation. I hope he believes that the reason he can’t find the review is that I must subscribe to Frog premium.