Snack Shack 2024

Snack-Shack-2024
Snack Shack 2024

I wonder, what were you engaged in during the summer holidays, the level before entering high school For me it was just like every other summer baseball game, all the action at tennis camp, video games, and Wiffle ball, it was more of meet the friends kind of summer. But one thing that was definitely off my mind? Getting a job. I still had an open, carefree, (relatively) responsibility-free summer vacation. Such was the case with most of my friends too.

However, whatever those few months comprised for you, I believe they were critical in shaping events to follow. Most teenagers did go to a new school in the fall, therefore, most likely it was for many their first time separating from schoolmates they have known, for me and maybe others around my age, at least, this was before the era of cellphones being common and before the generation of teenagers we now live in, so it was difficult to try to see school friends who lived far away from your school or a short distance within biking or walking. It was almost certain to have been as important a period in development as anything has been for all.

Snack Shack, the feature directorial debut of Adam Rehmeier, struck all these emotions in such an almost ideal way. Where the protagonists, A.J. (Conor Sherry) and Moose (Gabrielle LaBelle) may not have shared the same priorities that I would have at that age, the whole feeling was more or less the same.

Set in Nebraska City in 1991, Snack Shack narrates how the two best friends devise ways to make money during their summer vacation. That’s what they do: they hustle. At the commencement of summer figuratively they seem all set. They have made it a skill to win in dog track betting with the money they get from selling their illegal homemade beer. But when their folks learn about it, and one can imagine, it is quite pointless trying to do such a thing again. However, such despondence lasts for a short time because they soon come across a kid who offers them the perfect short-term opportunity. They win a bid to manage the snack shack near the community swimming pool. It is hard to call it a sure money-making scheme, yet it does mean their earlier goals get back on track just like that.

Things take a turn quite different when A.J.’s neighbor relative by the name of Brooke (Mika Abdalla) comes for a visit. This soft wimp has Shrek-like crush on her but is too shy about it. He never mentions her to Moose, and of course, Moose makes his break, and they start with icebreakers. And with already getting hot now, pool time where Brooke is a lifeguard, is just plain too much.

The low-risk strategy of Snack Shack has to go down as possibly the best and most intelligent decision of the game. That quick plot description above? That’s all it is in essence. And it ought to be the case. Moose and A.J. are just ordinary two teenage boys in Nebraska in the 90s just chilling, and casually hoping to laze around in their teenage summer break. In the broader perspective, it is not even that important. But that is the beauty of a good coming-of-age plot.

No one cares about the stakes a year later, or even three months later, for that matter. At that time, however, it is all that is of significance. It is their existence and identity at that very moment. At that moment, everything else becomes secondary in importance to them. It’s so straightforward yet elegant when appropriately implemented. This is why slice-of-life movies such as this are best suited for the most realistic settings. It’s easy to think that events surrounding characters could be experienced by any unknown teenager or any other individual from NE Nebraska city in the summer of 1991. There is something genuine about this that cannot be replicated.

What I found rather interesting as well is the way how Rehmeier approached the big topics in the film. There’s never a line in which one of the characters says “Next year everything’s going to change because of ‘insert bland reason here’, this summer is the one we have to enjoy.” Such phrases are obsolete in Rehmeier’s vision as it would distract from the flow. Not every writer or director would be able to cope with such level of restraint. But it makes the experience even better.

Cast performances also go a long way in assisting the film to the next level. LaBelle shines in the performance following The Fabelmans which was released in 2022. He is always a more rough and loud friend and LaBelle comes in hot and maintains this style throughout the show. It’s a very different part than in The Fabelmans, but it still exhibits a great range and intensity of skills. He’s complemented well by Sherry, as the friend with her head on straight who’s not only thinking about cash and skirts (maybe not that much more, but more). Together, they work great, and you believe in their friendship the instant they share their first frame on screen.

As Brooke, Abdalla is quite competent, but she is given relatively little to do since the character is rather one-dimensional. She’s constantly forced to relocate since her father is an army officer. There’s one scene where she says a sentence or two about how hard that is, but I regret to say that quite a little time is spent on it. However, she also works perfectly well with LaBelle and Sherry both and hence, this only hampers the film to some level.

While Snack Shack is overall enjoyable, there are a few factors that keep it from achieving greater heights. First and least in terms of importance, there are two local bullies. This is the one time it felt like Rehmeier was trying to tick something off a “coming-of-age movie checklist,” Of course, this only worked the first time around. It was one of those parts where it felt like, the movie included them as it had to provide them. They are not the principal villains of the story. They could have been removed and we would still have had the same story. Too much time is not spent on them and so it is not the worst thing, but their scenes are misplaced and uncomfortable as they do not fit with the rest of the movie.

There is also one story decision in the third act which should not have been made in the first place. At least there were some hints leading up to it, so it wasn’t completely out of left field. Still, it was not required. There are many resolutions of other plot lines that could have achieved the kind of punch this part was going for. This one ended up being more discordant than anything else, thereby hindering the total effect of the shooting to be achieved.

Also, the balance in the tone has always left a little to be desired. Snack Shack is an incredibly enjoyable film, but most of the funny lines are packed in the first 30 minutes while the remaining part gets dramatic. It perhaps could have been more entertaining had it been more consistent across the board with the overall, slightly crass and larger style or split both halves more evenly. At points, it seems like two separate pieces of material.

Snack Shack takes a classic premise and somehow figures out ways to make it more interesting. It is the smaller details that count. For instance, A.J. and Moose are 14 and about to start their first day of high school rather than 18 years old and graduating. They are never presented as two uneventful characters with some great burden hanging over their heads. Look at the film Superbad, for instance. Seth and Evan are college bound and that is what worries them the most. Here, it’s just about two friends who are slowly navigating growth.

The few negatives I pointed out are to bring it down somewhat, of course. But there’s so much good here, and in a setup that I’m an absolute sucker for. In fact, if I ever had the money and ideas to craft movies, this is just about the template of the movie I would want to craft.

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