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The sound of the word “grind” resonates with ‘The Endless Summer’ precisely because it captures the spirit of the film, dreamy surfing, where a group of friends spends most of their lives together, traveling to search for the ever-elusive perfect wave. However, this time the perfect wave is replaced by the goal, ‘sponsorship’ that they wish to get and tour with the champions they admire, the perfect wave is replaced by lower-level waves. The ethic goes the same as with the capture of surfing and skateboarding, it’s still the same. The difference is, however, that girls and college will ruin an adolescence that is savored forever, and skateboarding is everything.
SoCal feels very much like a state of mind, where the life of the friends revolves around a skateboarding store. Southern California is where life is lived and famous skateboarders are treated as rockstars in another realm. They are far from professional, and in a place where tape demos will never help get a sponsorship, let alone win them the big tournaments they wish to participate in. This is why they resort to following the famous champion Jimmy Wilson around in hopes of catching his eye, seeking attention from anywhere.
So much for the story, more or less, anyway. The characters themselves are only pale caricatures, there’s Eric (Mike Vogel), the lead, but Sweet Lou (Joey Kern), a supposed Don Juan who hovers close to his next victim and greets him with an effeminate drawl, is somehow more memorable. They do have two women in their vicinity: one who is too ideal and indeed she is too good, while the other admires them and gets them a slot in a tournament.
There is also a segment with Matt’s (Vince Vieluf) parents, who fled the house to get into a circus. He probably should not have anything to complain about regarding his skateboard tour. Along with the kids, he has a clown parent (or rather, I suppose, during his (or their) supreme clowning around), while Matt is disturbed to witness his parents in putty-nosed disguise. The prospect of being a skateboarding clown does, albeit for a moment, appear attractive.
The skateboarding itself is yet to be discussed. But I’m no skateboarding specialist, though I did watch the 2002 documentary “Dogtown and Z-Boys,” which details the rise of skateboarding in Santa Monica sometime around 1975. From watching that film, the guys in “Grind” might, if they were golfers, be able to shoot par on a few holes, but never for an entire round. The skateboarding footage was pretty bad compared to “Dogtown,” but everything else was amazing. These filmmakers continuously repeating the same basic tricks for an extended period made me question what the audience was actually cheering for.
Despite being on a rollercoaster ride, it is still pleasant in parts, much like everything else in the world. This film possesses no animosity, nor does it attempt to be something else that it is not, as it attempts to savor the life of a skater. Attempting to grasp the mental image of an old skater can be quite disturbing, and these men still have a long way to go.
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