Summer School (1987)

A 1987 teen comedy about a high-school gym teacher who is forced to spend his summer running remedial English for the kids who failed the year, and who is supposed to not care about any of it, and who turns out to care about all of it. The film is honest about the fun, and the honesty is the part most 80s comedies of the broad type were not willing to pay.

What the film does

Mark Harmon plays Freddy Shoop, the gym teacher, a California surfer type who has been putting off his teaching credential for years, who only took the job to coast, and who is told at the end of the school year that he has to teach summer school or lose the credential. The kids in his class are the ones who failed English, and the kids in his class are not the kids he was expecting. The kids are weird, and the kids are smart, and the kids are funny in the way real kids are funny. The film is interested in the kids.

The film is also interested in Freddy. Freddy is supposed to be a jerk. The film is not surprised that Freddy is a jerk. The film is interested in the moment Freddy realizes the kids are the thing, and the moment Freddy realizes he is allowed to care about the kids, and the moment Freddy realizes caring about the kids is more of him than the surfer thing ever was. The film is not subtle about the moment. The film is broad about the moment. The film is broad about all of the moments. The broadness is the register and the register is the point.

The third act is the final exam, and the final exam is the kids’ last chance to pass English and graduate, and the final exam is a bet Freddy has made with the principal. The film knows the bet is a contrivance. The film is fine with the contrivance. The contrivance is the way the film gets to the third act, and the third act is the place the film wants to be. The third act is the kids showing up for the test, and Freddy showing up for the kids, and the test being something the kids actually know how to do because Freddy taught them how to do it. The third act is the thing the film is for.

Why it’s in the canon

Criteria blend is 1+3, loved it and want to remember it. A funny 80s comedy about summer school. The film is broad. The film is loud. The film does not apologize for being broad and loud. The film is the rare 80s teen comedy that does not get defensive about being a teen comedy, and the un-defensiveness is the reason the film works. The film treats the genre as a genre that is allowed to be good at being itself, and the film is good at being itself.

The film is a Carl Reiner film. The film is not the most ambitious Carl Reiner film, and the film is not trying to be the most ambitious Carl Reiner film. The film is a Carl Reiner film that knows what kind of film it is, and the knowing is the craft. The kids are funny because Reiner let the kids be funny. The hero is a jerk because Reiner let the hero be a jerk. The jerkiness becomes something else, and the something else is the part the film is about, and the something else is the part Reiner knew was the part.

The film pairs with Just One of the Guys (1985) in the canon. The two films are not the same film. The two films are both 80s teen comedies, the two films are both broad, the two films are both about a teacher or a student who is more than the joke, the two films both let the joke be the lecture. The two films belong in the same canon for the same reason.

A note on the year

The film is 1987. The Wikipedia article is the 1987 film. We use 1987.

A note on disambiguation

This is the 1987 Carl Reiner film starring Mark Harmon. There is no other feature film of this title in the same year. The 1972 British TV movie of the same name is unrelated.

On hand

Yes, DVD + digital. The DVD is the Paramount release. The digital copy is the same transfer, no extras.