Review: 'Summering' is an uneven look at girls having one last adventure on the cusp of middle-school maturity

The pre-teen drama “Summering” aims to capture a particular moment — the last gasps of childhood, before the horrors of middle school force kids to grow up in a hurry — and is so earnest in its pursuit that it’s rather sad that the movie self-sabotages its own best intentions with an unfortunate plot choice.

It’s the last weekend in August before four 11-year-old girls, who live on the same street and are friends largely because of that geography, are about to be separated as each starts middle school at a different school. The four — science-minded Dina (Madalen Mills), spiritual-minded Lola (Sanai Victoria), nervous good girl Mari (Eden Grace Redfield), and quiet Daisy (Lia Barnett) — go to their favorite place, a tree near an overpass that they’ve decorated and call Terabithia, for one last time this summer.

Near their tree, Daisy finds something else: A dead body. It’s a man, in a suit, apparently a suicide — jumping form the overpass, 100 feet above.

(Side note: This movie was filmed in Utah, where I live, and the actor who plays the corpse is a guy I know slightly; he used to work at The Salt Lake Tribune, where I work.)

The girls, too young to have ever seen “Stand By Me,” decide to solve the mystery of the dead man. Who was he? How did he end up like this? As the girls begin their sleuthing, the movie drops clues for the audience to piece together the girls’ issues with their mothers. 

Daisy has the toughest backstory: Her father disappeared a year earlier, and her police officer mother, Laura (Lake Bell), has been emotionally out of action ever since. Mari’s mom, Stacie (Megan Mullally), is a helicopter mom, even monitoring Mari’s cellphone usage. We also meet Karna (Sarah Cooper), Lola’s painter mom, and Joy (Ashley Madekwe), Dina’s mom, who keeps close track of Dina’s progress on her summer reading list.

Director James Ponsoldt (“The Spectacular Now,” “The End of the Tour”), co-writing with Benjamin Percy, neatly distills a particular vibe — that of these pre-teen girls, trying to hold on to their girlhood while knowing that the pressures of adulthood, from puberty to rebelling against their parents, are just around the corner. In its quieter moments, when the movie just allows the four young actresses to be themselves, the movie achieves that.

Alas, those moments are shoehorned into a more pedestrian narrative, driven by the detective playacting into the dead man’s identity. There are also some problematic script choices — none worse than having Daisy sneak her mom’s pistol into her backpack. 

The imbalance between the sincere moments and the forced ones throws “Summering” off track, making a potentially heartfelt movie into an intermittently interesting one.

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‘Summering’

★★1/2

Opening Friday, August 12, at the Megaplex at The District (South Jordan) and Megaplex Thanksgiving Point (Lehi). Rated PG-13 for some thematic material. Running time: 87 minutes.