''Stolen Summer'' is a 2002 American

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...

about a

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

boy who befriends a terminally ill

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

boy and tries to convert him, believing that it is the only way the Jewish boy will get to

Heaven Heaven, or the Heavens, is a common Religious cosmology, religious cosmological or supernatural place where beings such as deity, deities, angels, souls, saints, or Veneration of the dead, venerated ancestors are said to originate, be throne, ...

. Directed by first time writer/director Pete Jones, ''Stolen Summer'' is the first film produced for '' Project Greenlight'', an independent film competition created by Ben Affleck and

Matt Damon Matthew Paige Damon ( ; born October 8, 1970) is an American actor, film producer, and screenwriter. He was ranked among ''Forbes'' most bankable stars in 2007, and in 2010 was one of the highest-grossing actors of all time. He has received va ...

, and sponsored by

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television service, which is the flagship property of namesake parent-subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based a ...

. '' Project Greenlight'' aired on

as a documentary series chronicling the selection of Jones's script from approximately seven thousand entries, and the production of the film in

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

in 2001. The film's casting department considered the casting of the

Jew Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly inte ...

ish Adi Stein as the Catholic Pete O'Malley, an ironic joke due to the characters attempting to convert a Jewish boy to Catholicism.

Cast

* Adi Stein as Pete O'Malley * Mike Weinberg as Danny Jacobsen * Aidan Quinn as Joe O'Malley * Bonnie Hunt as Margaret O'Malley * Kevin Pollak as Rabbi Jacobsen * Brian Dennehy as Father Kelly * Ryan Jonathan Kelley as Seamus O'Malley * Eddie Kaye Thomas as Patrick O'Malley * Will Malnati as Eddie O'Malley

Box office

The domestic total gross for the film was $134,726. Production costs were $1.8 million.Box Office Mojo page
for "Stolen Summer" (accessed February 23, 2007).

Critical reception

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

gave it a score of 37%. The site's critical consensus is, "Stolen Summer feels like a sugary after-school special stretched out to feature length." On

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, the film has a weighted average score of 36 out of 100, based on 24 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".

References

External links

* * 2002 films 2002 drama films American drama films Films produced by Ben Affleck Films produced by Matt Damon Miramax films 2000s English-language films 2000s American films 2002 directorial debut films Films scored by Danny Lux Films about Jews and Judaism Films about Catholicism Films about friendship {{2000s-drama-film-stub