Making a career change isn’t easy, and people are often resistant to accept that they’re going to have to start doing something different. But a break, necessitated for whatever reason, can be even harder, especially if others make assumptions for motivations and what’s next. Chasing Summer finds its natural disaster-following protagonist put on hiatus with a next prestigious humanitarian opportunity on the horizon, but apparently not saintly enough to avoid having to move home for the summer to face a life she left behind years earlier and has no interest in re-encountering again.
Jamie (Iliza Shlesinger) is running the show helping people after a tornado in Mississippi, and she gets the news that she and her boyfriend got a coveted assignment in Jakarta just before he tells her that he’s breaking up with her and his new girlfriend has put all her stuff in storage. In the interim before she goes abroad, she’s forced to move home to live with her mom (Megan Mullally) and stepdad (Jeff Perry). Being back isn’t easy as she starts helping out at the roller rink her sister Marissa (Cassidy Freeman) bought, where she quickly befriends a much younger employee, Harper (Lola Tung) and dreads seeing the women she used to know in high school and running into her hunk of an ex-boyfriend Chase (Tom Welling). She gets some hope for an unexpected future when she meets a guy Harper’s age at a party, Colby (Garrett Wareing), who is immediately very into her.
Sundance audiences familiar with director Josephine Decker’s past works, like Madeline’s Madeline and Shirley, may not know what they’re in for when it comes to this film, but the context makes much more sense with the additional information that Shlesinger, who has performed extensively as a stand-up comedian, wrote the script. There are jokes embedded throughout that repeat and work well, like the fact that not a single person in her suburban Texas hometown knows what she actually does, referencing the Coast Guard and the Marines, among other inaccurate guesses. Her extremely stained and dirty shoes signal the contrast between where she’s been and the much more polished environment in which she’s now found herself, where her primary job is to help fix the many structural problems at the roller rink that still draws huge crowds as one of the main local attractions.
Shlesinger serving as both screenwriter and star is a wonderful choice because she’s able to find kinship with the character, even if their lives and stories are nothing alike (they do share a Texas upbringing). Though it’s hard to imagine her deploying self-depreciating sarcasm regularly while sweeping up after a tornado, it’s great fun to watch Jamie’s awkward interactions with the people she’s tried to forget and to see just how hard she pushes back when a man nearly two decades younger than her expresses interest in her. She’s surrounded by a great ensemble with the charming Wareing, appropriately meat-headed Welling, and amusingly condescending Mullally. Freeman is a perfect choice to play her sister, who comes in hot with resentment and an energy that Jamie isn’t ready to meet, and it’s also nice to see Aimee Garcia as an old friend of Jamie’s who reveals more layers to her highly intimidating character as the film goes on.
This comedy isn’t trying to take itself too seriously, and, as a result, it doesn’t dwell much on a third-act twist which audiences may see coming much earlier, using it instead to continue to support its look at this woman who has accomplished so much only to come back to where she started and feel like she hasn’t done anything. This film feels familiar in a good way, hardly breaking new dramatic or comedic ground but showcasing entertaining character dynamics in a film that’s consistently engaging and funny. Shlesinger is a natural on screen and should absolutely continue bringing her brand of comedy to the screen, finding ways to laugh and make others laugh at the world around them.
Movie Rating: 7/10
Chasing Summer premieres in the Premieres section at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival.
