Hot Summer Nights, released to select theaters on July 27, 2018, was a brilliant adaptation of a true story about love, drugs, and coming of age. The film is set the summer of 1991 in Cape Cod. Call Me By Your Name star, Timothée Chalamet, who plays Daniel, was joined by Maika Monroe and Alex Roe.
The film’s trailer has a strong vintage vibe, that immediately catches people’s attention, especially teenagers. The star of the film, Timothée Chalamet, has already become a heartthrob for teens, after his roles in Lady Bird and Call Me By Your Name. His role in the film brought much attention from fans of his two previous films. The film was bound to be a hit from the moment the trailer was released.
With a brilliant color scheme of sunset orange, purples, and dark blues, the film carried an unforgettable atmosphere, that matches the 90’s theme perfectly.
The plot of the film follows a 17 year old boy who gets sent away for the summer by his mother, following the death of his father. He is sent to live with his unconcerned aunt in Cape Cod. The small town’s social system was built solely on the sale of marijuana. Everyone in the town, parents and children, purchase marijuana from the same person, Hunter Strawberry. He is played by Roe, and accompanies Chalamet as a strong supporting role. Daniel gets roped into selling drugs with Strawberry, and quickly reaches the point of no return.
Besides drugs, the film follows the love story between Daniel and McKayla Strawberry, who is Hunter’s sister. Hunter threatens any boy that tries to date his sister, therefore,their relationship is kept secret.
As the film progresses, the intensity of relationships grow and the characters get themselves deeper into the intense drug business of Cape Cod.
Leading up to the end of the film, we follow a hurricane’s path towards the town. The storm represents the destruction of everything the characters have worked to uphold. Directly before the storm hits, Daniel finds himself in a life or death situation involving a cocaine dealer. The meeting ends with Daniel ruining the entire deal, and the dealer warns him to skip town and never return, as Daniel’s boss will not hesitate to kill him. The ending of the meeting marks the beginning of the storm.
During the storm, every relationship between the characters falls apart and all of their work is destroyed.
By the end of the film Hunter Strawberry is dead, Daniel leaves and is never seen again, and Mikayla takes a bus to the west coast where she too is never heard from again.
This ending is extremely unexpected for those that watched the trailer, as the trailer portrays it as a story of young love and summer recklessness, but as the film continues, it becomes clear that the plot is much darker.