Only once in a great while does a movie come along that makes you physically throw your hands up due to its complete absurdity. I was laughing through the entire thing. From the characters, to the dialogue, the entire thing is completely disjointed and only made worse by the singing. The characters are flat and heartless. The story lacks any layering or insight. The entire thing felt sort of tripe.

An attractive, likable cast made it all bearable and, at times, enjoyable, but most of the twists and turns in the story were predictable, derivative and tedious.There also seemed to be numerous, awkward moments when, out of nowhere, a musical number was inserted in a startling, cringe worthy way. Rather than enhancing the story line, most of them were intrusive, barely relevant and uncomfortable.While the whole movie was creeping over the line into soap opera territory, the final twist & turn removed all doubt.It is probably still worth watching, but by the end you may be asking yourself, "what the hell just happened."

It may be hard to believe but I was unaware of Jay Bell's Something Like series of books before I recently came upon this movie by accident. I immediately became enamored with the actors, their acting, the music and the ability of Director David Berry's ability to capture the gut wrenching emotions of a young, gay man growing up. Grant Davis did a wonderful performance playing the roller coaster life of Ben. I have to admit I was surprised when Ben started singing and the movie cut to a stage scene where Ben is singing to a living statue of his first real love, Tim. Davis' voice was perfect for emotionally telling details of Ben's feelings. The music added a unique touch to the movie. The expression on Ben's face in the scene where he had his first kiss is incredible. The chemistry between all the characters was significant. One of the ways I judge how well I like a movie is how many times I check how much time is left in the movie. Something Like Summer captured my attention, evoked emotions in me that I didn't know I had and without me ever stopping to see how much time was left in the movie. I'm sorry I missed the West Coast premiere of the movie here in San Diego. I'm almost ashamed to say I lost track of how many times I have watched the movie. I discover new things every time. It was that good.

This movie gave me a lot of feelings and not one of them was positive. The two hours (six because I kept pausing to vent) I spent watching this were an exercise in frustration. This should not have been two hours long. It doesn't have enough substance to warrant that length.Full disclosure: my main source of irritation with this film stems from the lead character, and I'll admit that it's in large part due to the actor. None of the acting in this film is stellar but his was the weakest for me(except for act II where Tim suddenly starts talking like Mr. Darcy in P&P). Needless to say that I didn't like Ben; found him completely un-rootable. We're meant to sympathize with him, admire his courage at being out in high school while living in a conservative town, but I couldn't muster even that. This is supposed to be a story about growth, which visits the main pair at 3 different points in their lives, but while Tim did change/grow, I felt like Ben stayed the same. As the "good" one of the two, I guess that we're supposed to look at it as Tim "growing" to get to Ben's level of self-acceptance, which he did, but Ben is a flawed, inherently selfish character who could've done with considerable growth himself and unfortunately we didn't get to see that.It took me a while to put my finger on it but this felt like one of those films that's intended to be a vehicle to launch an actor's career, to show how special and talented he is. Or one of those self-indulgent ones where the director/writer also assigns himself a lead role regardless of his ability to act. Mulligans comes to mind, probably because I watched that recently. But even that guy, with his two facial expressions and monotone voice, didn't annoy me this much. I wasn't aware going in that this was also a musical so the first time Ben burst into song, I was taken aback. It was hard to take his performances seriously, however, since every time he did the scene "froze" yet you could see the other actors struggling not to move and blinking rapidly. It was very distracting. Also, while Ben/Grant can indeed sing, I wasn't fond of his voice and I don't think the songs accomplished what the director intended.Long story short, I personally would not recommend this film. By halfway through, I didn't care whether the two ended up together or not. I actually felt like Tim could do better but then I decided maybe it was best that they be together to save anyone else the misery of having to date them. The fact that someone literally had to die for them to come together in the end just cemented my dislike of the film, especially since that person was perhaps the nicest and most likable character in the film.