‘Chasing Summer’ Review: Iliza Shlesinger Rom-Com Is a Sporadically Charming Collection of Contrivances

“Chasing Summer,” a rom-com both aware of and deeply indebted to genre convention, feels closer to a reflection of its writer-star Iliza Shlesinger than to director Josephine Decker.

It plays like an extension of Shlesinger’s humor from her stand-up comedy, not a successor to Decker’s previous films “Madeline’s Madeline” and “Shirley.” Much of this makes sense and, for fans of its star, will likely be appealing. But for those looking for the return of the Decker who frequently took big, bold swings in her work, you’ll have to look very hard to see that version of her. 

This could be fine were the film itself consistently good fun. Alas, it is not. Though there are flashes of more chaotic comedy that get the pulse racing here and there, for the most part “Chasing Summer” is a surprisingly safe genre riff.

Decker’s direction seems as if it’s trying to say something deeper about its protagonist chasing disaster as a way of distracting herself from her own life falling apart. Unfortunately, the film does shockingly little with this interesting idea and any others it encounters. Instead, as storms gather, “Chasing Summer” gets consistently choppy in all the wrong ways. The more it goes on, the more its sporadic charms are nearly drowned under a torrent of well-meaning though wearisome contrivances. It stretches an already thin story out as far as it can go and provides little of anything to get truly emotionally invested in.

This is felt right out the gate when we meet disaster relief worker Jamie (Shlesinger) via a quick snapshot of an interview that we’ll circle back to later with a new perspective. This overused narrative framing device is meant to create a sense of dramatic irony, where we know something that the character does not. But even with a good gag involving a montage of storms, you almost entirely forget about this by the time we circle back to it.

Before we get there, we are properly introduced to Jamie in hard times. She has just learned her boyfriend is leaving her, seemingly out of the blue, and has already moved all her stuff into a storage unit. Left with limited options, she moves back in with her parents in small-town Texas. While she seems to have changed a lot since she left, Jamie starts falling into old habits, reconnecting with old and new flames while she tries to figure out her next step. 

On the one hand, this sounds as if it could be a riff of sorts on a Hallmark movie. No, unfortunately, not one like in John Wilson’s Sundance documentary “The History of Concrete,” where its filmmaker uses the Hallmark template to create something new. Despite some initial moments where it seems to gesture towards breaking free of said template, “Chasing Summer” gets mostly tied up in the conflicts that one would expect it to.

These are familial, romantic and professional issues she must work through, though the film oddly feels stuck looking backward. As a result, when things change and Jamie makes big decisions for herself, they can feel as if they come out of nowhere. 

Some of this could perhaps be explained by the fact that Jamie is in the process of reinventing herself, but that can only take us so far. Scenes often feel stilted and haphazard in how they are cut together, which makes it seem as though the film itself is coming apart at the seams.

Much like how Jamie is trying to reinvent herself, Decker seems to be returning to safer, more standard ground. That approach offers some modest pleasures, but nothing that lingers for more than a moment. Even as Shlesinger is consistently solid in the part, the film around her is nowhere near as daring or clever as it needs to be.

When it does throw in a big twist that’s actually not all that surprising, your mind flashes to a host of rom-coms that already did this better. When you think about it a little further, you realize how little sense much of this actually makes, emotionally and narratively. Even when it builds to a great climax for Jamie, the road to get there is as tumultuous as the storms she worked to help people survive.

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