Taking place in July 1976, the nostalgia-tinged coming-of-age film Measure of a Man is set along the shores of an exclusive, cabin-lined lake in upstate New York. While the movie is unobjectionable in its portrayals of life among the summer-along-the-lake crowd and humanizing even to its villains, there is no discernible broader purpose that justifies it. It seems intended simply as light-hearted amusement within one of the more well-established subgenres in all of screen culture. The film makes all its marks on this front, as it capably inhabits the expected tropes with filmmaking skill and good humor. Yet it leaves a crucial query unanswered: what is the point of it all?
The plot follows the summer vacation of teenaged Bobby, who sometimes goes by Robert, and Marks (Blake Cooper), an overweight and socially-awkward kid who dislikes the whole lake-party scene. He had one hope for salvaging his summer—his best friend Joanie Williams (Danielle Rose Russell) also being at the lake—but even that chance for salvation is dashed when Joanie makes an unexpectedly early return to the City. To exacerbate his woes, his parents are bickering and too caught up in their own issues to notice him, his sister is trying to seduce the lake’s muscled hottie and three local “townies” are bullying him relentlessly.
Luckily, Bobby manages to get hired as a budget-option handy man at a lakeside mansion, where he learns self-respect and earns a few dollars from Dr. Kahn (Donald Sutherland). This leads to a much better summer than the outright misery that seemed in store. Slowly, he transforms into a more confident, composed person, and by the end of the movie, Bobby is outright audacious as he seizes his dignity.
This may sound like a perfectly good coming-of-age story with a laugh or two. Where Measure of a Man alienates the viewer is more conceptual, as it’s a crass and opportunistic exploitation of the ‘80s nostalgia swallowing up what little bit of US culture that exists outside the Disney/Lucas Films/MCU juggernaut. For instance, the movie opens with an adult male narrator introducing the story of his younger teenaged self, which is the same hackneyed device used by “The Goldbergs” to hearken back to “The Wonder Years” and the glorious ‘80s—notably, the narrator disappears after the prologue and only returns in the instant before the closing credits. The period setting is also there simply to sell the concept; other than a cut scene to the Bicentennial celebration and the soundtrack, the 1976-ness of the film limited to props in a Spielbergian gambit to grasp at an all-too marketable wistfulness.
Perhaps aware of its own banality, Measure of a Man carefully tries to appeal to a deeper purpose. To avoid being just yet-another straight white male actualization story, it brings in side characters with marginalized voices. The bully who brutalizes Bobby is a Vietnam vet who grew up hard and is also a closeted homosexual. Dr. Kahn is a Holocaust survivor haunted by the destruction of his entire family, a fact that the film treats with subtlety even though Kahn and his rare pep talks are major plot devices.
Measure of a Man is enjoyable, with a teenage sensibility that makes it a good kids movie, and it successfully pulls viewers into its nostalgia honeypot trap, however crassly conceived. Like dozens of films before it, such as the similar but superior The Sandlot, it manipulates the tropes of the coming-of-age genre to great effect. But there is no broader sensibility or purpose here, so don’t look for one.
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