Co-directors Steven Kanter and Henry Loevner reunite (after their COVID-set breakup comedy \u201cThe End of Us\u201d) for their sophomore feature, \u201cPeak Season.\u201d Engaged couple Amy (Claudia Restrepo) and Max (Ben Coleman) jet off from NYC to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, for a breath of fresh air as they finalize details for their upcoming wedding. And while towering mountains and sprawling landscapes are the perfect backdrop for romance, it isn\u2019t the betrothed who experience it.<\/p>\n
Max is an inattentive, self-absorbed workaholic. While \u201cPeak Season\u201d tells us they’re in love, the fact of their engagement is the only evidence we\u2019re given. Their interactions are stiff, as Max often steps on top of Amy\u2019s words and feelings to insert his own will and opinion. Most of her desires to spend time with him are met with dismissal at best and abandonment at worst (even ditching their hiking plans to go to a workout class with a female acquaintance they bumped into). So when his job (as an oft-stereotyped supply chain bro) calls him back to the city in the middle of their trip, Amy is forced (or, rather, gets the privilege) to kill time solo.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Going to their scheduled fly-fishing lesson alone, she meets Loren (Derrick Joseph DeBlassis), the community\u2019s beloved outdoorsman who saddles between fishing lessons, rock climbing sessions, and dishwashing at a local spot. Yet despite capitalizing on a litany of opportunities in the town\u2019s nature-forward gig economy, he\u2019s barely scraping by, living in his SUV and showering with water out of a canteen that he rigs up in a tree. The two hit it off and spark up a fast-growing friendship that tiptoes the line of something more and calls their supposed contentment with their lives into question.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeak Season\u201d investigates the principles of settling, romantically, personally, and otherwise. While love is at the center, foiling Max and Loren, the film delightfully takes its time fuzzing the lines between platonic and romantic connection, building the connection over its runtime rather than forcing a tired love-at-first-sight narrative. They rub shoulders at a Western bar where they have a meet-cute of sorts post-lesson. They giggle together at a rodeo. And realistically, they argue, aptly butting heads while trying to give Loren\u2019s friend advice on the idea of settling down. While the theme of settling paves its way through the film, it does so rather simply, and we\u2019re made hyper-aware of the point \u201cPeak Season\u201d wants to make.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Amy values comfort, while Loren puts stock in passion and freedom over stability, and this debate scene becomes a microcosm of the film\u2019s dilemma. It makes us wonder:\u00a0if we\u2019re led to believe that Amy loves Max, then surely the thing to wonder about\u00a0is if she likes him. However, some of the nuance of the juxtaposition in this love triangle is negated by the fact that while Loren has depth, Max is archetypically bad. We\u2019re not given any reason to like him other than goodwill. He\u2019s constantly selfish, demeaning, and corny (not even in a charming way).\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Co-directors Steven Kanter and Henry Loevner reunite (after their COVID-set breakup comedy \u201cThe End of Us\u201d) for their sophomore feature, \u201cPeak Season.\u201d Engaged couple Amy (Claudia Restrepo) and Max (Ben Coleman) jet off from NYC to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, for a breath of fresh air as they finalize details for their upcoming wedding. And while …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[33,39],"class_list":["post-1473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comedy-movies","tag-comedy","tag-romance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1473\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}