This is a charming, nostalgic story about eight thirty-something adults who come to a reunion at the summer camp they attended as teenagers, to relive the warm, carefree summers they spent sailing, canoeing, swimming, hiking, growing up and falling in love.There's Beth (Diane Lane) recently widowed, who had met and fallen in love with her late husband at camp, and who wanted to immerse herself in camp memories and be sad; Matt (Vincent Spano) and Kelly (Julie Warner) who had also met at camp, had married years later, raised two children and whose marriage has grown silent and passionless, as Matt has become resentful of his job and his life responsibilities; Jennifer (Elizabeth Perkins) who once had a passionate summer camp romance with Matt, and who is lonely and feeling that life is passing her by; Brad (Kevin Pollak), Matt's cousin and hard-driving business partner, who designs and manufactures outdoor apparel, who plays practical jokes and who is out of touch with his feelings; Jamie (Matt Craven) who is single and a player, and who has brought his current girlfriend Gwen (Kimberly Williams), whom he'd met on the ski slopes at Aspen and who is barely twenty-one; and Jack (Bill Paxton) who has come all the way from L.A. because he needs to find and return something he'd stolen and buried in anger long ago.
And drawing them all together is Unca Lou Handler (Alan Arkin) the camp's aging owner, who had guided and counseled them through so many long-ago summers, and who wants to share with them some stories about the camp's past and some ideas about its future.
If you love warm-hearted, character-driven, nostalgia-rich, reunion-themed films like The Big Chill and When Harry Met Sally..., then you won't want to miss Indian Summer. It's a film that will reconnect you with your own youth, and your memories of summertime and camping, a film you will want to revisit again and again.
Labels: comedy, drama, reunion, rom-drama-faves, romance
Internet Movie Database 6.5/10
RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=56, viewers=72)
Blu-ray
Roger Ebert's review 3 of 4 stars
