Summer vacation plans for AJ (Conor Sherry) and Moose (Gabriel LaBelle) are disrupted after they get caught sneaking away from a class trip to bet at the race tracks across the river and across state lines.  Not that there was much to do in their small Nebraska town, anyway, the pair are now forced to find jobs, but their entrepreneurial spirits get in the way because they would rather sell their home-brewed beer than work for someone else.  After a bit of scheming, they win the bid to run the Snack Shack at the pool for the summer, but the boys begin to put their competing attraction towards Brooke (Mika Abdalla), one of the lifeguards at the pool, ahead of their profits and ahead of each other. 

Adam Rehmeier writes and directs the 1991-set period comedy, Snack Shack, much in the same style as the freewheeling, teenage rebellion films that defined an era of comedic filmmaking.  The film received a criminally limited theatrical release from Paramount Pictures and Republic who seemed more interested in offloading the title by releasing it in March right on the heels of its Special Speakers Series debut; though to be fair, May was a pretty loaded slate and the film would struggle to compete against three major tentpoles.  At 112 minutes, the film does run a little on the long side, especially for a comedy, but there is enough heart in it to get it across the finish line with audiences still endeared to its scrappy protagonists having just watched them upsend their lives but come out of the experience all the better for it. 

Both LaBelle and Sherry look far too old for their 17–18-year-old counterparts, but they inhabit that same energy of an excited youth with the whole world ahead of them.  Their wild ride, though, does not have guardrails as AJ’s father, Judge (David Costabile), is quick to point to Shane (Nick Robinson), an older boy from the neighborhood idolized by his son, as a cautionary tale.  Shane has just returned from serving in the Air Force, and the irony in Judge’s threat of military school on his son is that Judge treats Shane as more of a son than he does AJ so the prospect might actually serve as a bridge for the two even if AJ has no desire to enlist if left to his own will.  Rehmeier does give father and son a chance at reconciliation late in the film, but it is very stoic and more about what goes unsaid between a father and a son who struggle to be on the same page with each other.  He does not allow the film to be weighed down too heavily by this matter, but a little more focus on AJ’s relationship with his parents would have gone a long way.  

Much of the film plays out with the same energy level as a Disney sitcom before the script got stripped down for language and content.  Some of the dialogue does feel a little like it was pulled from a sleepaway camp where the boys curse in almost every exchange because there are no adults to tell them not to, but at the same time there is some truth to that habit as well so it is hard to fully hold it against the film; it just means the characters struggle to have their own voice.  This nobody-is-watching attitude fits the tone and as this is not a lazy, dog days of summer, film, the characters are always hustling from one setup to the next. While it does feel like the film lags a bit in the middle so that Rehmeier can play out isolated set pieces and scenarios away from the driving action, Snack Shack is never boring.  It may not have its heart on its sleeve like The Kings of Summer (2013) or The Way, Way Back (2013), but it is still a strong entry into the canon of kids being left to their own devices as they navigate the tricky territory somewhere between adolescence and adulthood. 

The greater theme of Snack Shack is what comes next, but for much of the film, it is examining a friendship that is both thriving and in chaos. The two share some electric chemistry together so we really do feel the pain of loss as they push each other to as far as the other will go. Rehmeier does not frame this explicitly as an end-of-innocence tale with college right around the corner, but AJ and Moose must contend with cracks in their relationship that have been exposed for the first time in what we can only imagine is their lifelong friendship. As the film enters its second act, we see flickers of this schism as it becomes less of a two-hander and really begins to put AJ center stage. It was an odd decision to frame the film around AJ’s experience because, while certainly a handful in his own right, he is the more passive of the pair – and eventually trio when opened to include Brooke – so we are following a boy who is often playing catchup just outside of the main focus of the frame. To Sherry’s credit though, he never lets us forget his presence and we foster a strong connection with him in those earlier scenes so that we stay on his side when things get rough for the two. That is not to say that Moose is framed as a villain, but when push comes to shove, we want to see AJ succeed.

Snack Shack may not permeate into the realm of being a quintessential teen comedy, or summer hang-out flick, even when focusing on more independently-minded films, but that does not mean it is not a success. It fulfills everything it set out to do, and even though it wraps up almost too cleanly as it closes the book on the summer, it is still a triumphant moment for our characters. A story about growth from the perspective of looking back fondly on a summer romance and a childhood friendship, there is lots to enjoy here, and it sparks some photo album nostalgia in the audience without being overtly manipulative. We do not know what is next for AJ – or Booke, or Moose for that matter – but somehow, we know that they are going to be alright.