Summertree 1971

In 1970, Jerry is a twenty-year-old on the cusp of adulthood who returns home to tell his parents that he’s thinking about leaving university to “find himself.” The conversation instantly prickles with worry: their expensive tuition already feels like a sunk cost, and the shadow of the Vietnam War looms large, threatening to strip away his student draft deferment if he walks away from school. The tension at home is palpable, yet the movie quietly uses this friction to map a young man’s search for identity against a backdrop of civic duty and familial expectations.

Inspired by a television advertisement, Jerry volunteers to become a Big Brother to a Black boy named Marvis. What starts as a simple mentorship grows into a meaningful, if complicated, bond as they navigate life’s rough edges together. A minor fall injures Marvis, and the two head to a hospital where Vanetta—a nurse—enters their story. An immediate spark kindles between them, and their relationship grows into a shared life, even though Vanetta is older than him.

As the relationship deepens, Jerry makes a bold move: he drops out of college and tests his wings in the local music scene, relying on his self-taught guitar to land a steady gig at a coffeehouse. He hopes that this new path will solidify his draft deferment through formal conservatory training, but the audition room reveals a harsher truth: the conservatorium rejects him for lack of formal training. The setback forces him to contend with a stubborn reality—talent isn’t enough if credentials are demanded by institutions.

The plot thickens with heartbreak and loss. Marvis’s older brother is killed in Vietnam, and the young man’s anger turns against Jerry, fracturing their fragile friendship. Meanwhile, Tony—a Marine who recently returned from the front—enters Vanetta’s life again. He informs Jerry that Vanetta had promised to wait for him, forcing a painful renegotiation of loyalties. The love triangle strains the couple’s resolve, and eventually Vanetta chooses not to join Jerry as he contemplates skipping town for Canada to dodge the draft.

Before he can depart, a family meal turns into a heated farewell. The elder Herb seems to accept his son’s plan, but a practical, almost cruel, moment arrives: he persuades a gas-station mechanic to disable Jerry’s car for a few days to slow down the departure—an act that jolts Jerry and pushes him toward a wrenching decision. The scene erupts into chaos as Jerry careens the car into another vehicle being towed, a physical manifestation of a family and national conflict that has become personal.

In the solemn final minutes, Herb and Ruth lie in bed as their television flickers with Vietnam footage. The news cuts to a close-up of a dying Jerry carried away by fellow soldiers, a stark, brutal image that crystallizes the film’s meditation on duty, choice, and the costs of a restless search for meaning. The movie ends with a quiet, aching acknowledgement that the line between personal awakening and tragedy can blur in the most unexpected of ways.