Season’s Greetings: Summer Solstice Premieres At IFC

By Adam Kamp

FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: Drew Burnett Gregory, Bobbi Salvör Menuez, Noah Schamus and Marianne Rendón. Photo by Adam Kamp.

Glowing with the energy of the summer and keeping with the awkward humor of real life, New York City native filmmaker Noah Schamus’s first feature film Summer Solstice stole my heart. The film features Bobbi Salvör Menuez and Marianne Rendón as Leo, a queer transgender man, and Eleanor, a straight, cisgender woman, college friends who reconnect for an upstate getaway. In less than an hour-and-a-half Summer Solstice is able to bring out both Leo and Eleanor’s unique personalities and intertwined histories, all while making me laugh through some of the most earnest and uncomfortable moments of their lives.

Menuez and Rendón play their roles beautifully as individuals and as a team, embodying their characters’ ability to bring out the best in one another while keeping the tension between them at the forefront. The conflict is also communicated through Schamus’s collaboration with director of photography Jack Davis, who transforms an idyllic country home into an isolating and thorny space which begs the question: what stops us from communicating with someone just a few doors away?

Cutting through the heavy emotions is the consistent and flexible comedy, bolstered by Menuez and Rendón’s chemistry. The writing plays on the comedy we might find in our regular lives, especially when we are the source of that comedy. An unexpected encounter with a classmate, your friend’s terrible taste in men, or even a cliché that you have to play into for your own good, all of these moments in the film are the things I might roll my eyes at should they present themselves to me, but seeing them on the screen makes me burst out in laughter. It is this sense of laughing to keep from crying (or breaking down altogether) that makes Schamus’ writing so enjoyable.

Ultimately, the film is queer in its production and its content, and unapologetically so. This is the first film I have ever seen that has so directly dealt with the conflict arising from straight people who just don’t get it, and that fact alone made the entire theater feel like a safer space than it has ever been. On top of that, intimate scenes are scaffolded around open communication and explicit consent, which only amplifies that feeling of warmth and safety. Summer Solstice seems to get these small things right where larger productions struggle or shy away.

I would highly recommend Summer Solstice to a wide range of queer and non-queer people alike. Whether you want to cry, laugh, or simply crave more depth and humanity in characters on-screen, Summer Solstice is the film for you.

Adam Kamp is a recent graduate of the Cinema and Media Studies program at Carleton College. Born and raised in Manhattan, Adam grew up around theater and the performing arts of the city. They are now looking for employment in the film industry as they prepare for graduate school.