'Snack Shack' Will Trigger a Lot of Gen X Summer Flashbacks

By Dustin Rowles | Film | August 26, 2024 |

By Dustin Rowles | Film | August 26, 2024 |

I recently subscribed to the MGM+ streaming service through Prime Video because several of us on staff have finally gotten into From, a year after Petr recommended it (more pieces on that show in the future,
I’m sure), and since I’ve collected a few Prime Video subs (Paramount+ and AMC+, to go along with Freevee), the “live” row is fairly robust now. Browsing it on Saturday night, I noticed that on MGM+, they were airing one of my favorite coming-of-age tales from the aughts, Adventureland and one of my favorite coming-of-age tales more recently, Bottoms.

Sandwiched in between was a coming-of-age movie called Snack Shack that I’d never heard of, and while I’d only meant to sample a few minutes of it, I got sucked in for the duration. It felt briefly like the old-school days of making a discovery while channel surfing, which is appropriate because Snack Shack takes place during the channel-surfing heyday.

Set in Nebraska City in 1991, writer/director Adam Rehmeier’s Snack Shack centers on two 14-year-old best friends, A.J. (Conor Sherry) and Moose (Gabriel LaBelle, of The Fabelmans). On the advice of an older friend, Shane (Nick Robinson, Jurassic World), the two rent out a snack shack at a swimming pool for the summer. Hijinks ensue. The two both also fall in love with a “short timer” lifeguard, Brooke (Mika Abdalla), the kind of teen girl in every coming-of-age movie in the early ’90s, for better or worse (basically, the Phoebe Cates version of Manic Pixie Dream Girls).

The film is not unique or transformative or mind-blowing, by any stretch, which is kind of the point: It’s a low-key, bittersweet coming-of-age film that mines a lot of Gen X nostalgia, even in a soundtrack that is good (The Cramps), bad (Timmy T), and both (New Kids on the Block, Tone Loc). I suspect Rehmeier — who is from the same city where Snack Shack is set, Nebraska City — also came of age in the early ’90s, a year before Grunge took an Etch-a-Sketch and shook pop culture.

It’s essentially a loose collection of teenage experiences featuring a very good cast (that also includes David Costabile and Gillian Vigman as A.J.’s parents). The whole film felt like driving down the strip of my hometown on a Friday night before they widened all the lanes and put in a bunch of chain restaurants and big box stores or, more accurately, like visiting the community pool and spending the day there on a hot summer day, never knowing what newfound adventures lie ahead, back when all adventures still felt newfound. The movie itself may not ultimately be all that memorable, but for a demo of a certain age, it will certainly evoke a lot of memories.

Snack Shack is available to stream for free on MGM+ or you can rent it digitally.