Posts Tagged ‘STOLEN SUMMER’

STOLEN SUMMER

stolen_summer_2002_685x385Pete Jones, winner of the Matt Damon/Ben Affeck produced Project Greenlight, is at the helm for Stolen Summer, a coming of age story about an eight year old Catholic boy who decides that converting Jews to Christianity is his ticket to heaven. It’s a great opportunity for Jones, a former insurance salesman, who beat out 10,000 other wannabe screenwriters / directors on the Survivor-style reality show to win 1 million dollars to make a film that Miramax would then release. He’s learning filmmaking in public, which explains why Stolen Summer has the feel of a student film. A more skilled director might have been able to reign in the melodrama, and cut the earnestness. A troupe of skilled actors are underused, although Aidan Quinn as the working-class Catholic father and Kevin Pollak as the local rabbi struggle through the Hallmark inspired script, handing in well measured performances. The film isn’t perfect, not by a long shot, but what it lacks in slickness, it more than makes up for with heart and charm.