Chasing Summer (2026) Parents Guide

Chasing Summer is not rated R by the Motion Picture Association (MPA), and tonally it aligns far more with mainstream studio romantic comedies than with anything transgressive or abrasive.

Valerie Veatch’s incendiary documentary “Ghost in the Machine” doesn’t politely enter the conversation about artificial intelligence it detonates in the middle of it. The film feels less like a contribution to discourse and more like an urgent intervention, a cinematic flare shot straight into the fog of bloated AI mythmaking that surrounds us. By interrogating what we even mean when we talk about “knowledge,” and tracing those questions into a bracing examination of contemporary techno-fascism, Veatch has made something that already feels indispensable to this cultural moment the kind of work critics will be referencing years from now when trying to explain how we got here.

The film unfolds more like a razor-sharp video essay than a traditional documentary, though it still draws on a wide and impressive bench of scholars, critics, and thinkers. It opens in Seattle, 2016 an era that, in hindsight, feels deceptively calm, like the opening moments of a horror film before the first scream. That calm shatters with the introduction of Microsoft’s experimental AI chatbot, Tay, designed to “learn” from its interactions with Twitter users. Within hours, Tay became a grotesque reflection of the platform itself: spewing racism, misogyny, and neo-Nazi rhetoric with chilling efficiency. Microsoft pulled the plug almost immediately. But as Veatch’s film makes clear, the damage or perhaps the revelation had already been done. The catastrophe wasn’t a fluke; it was a warning. And “Ghost in the Machine” insists, with mounting urgency, that we ignore that warning at our peril.

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From that opening, the film hurtles forward with breathtaking velocity, leaping between history, sociology, philosophy, labor politics, and media theory. It’s a lot at times almost too much and some viewers may feel as though they’re sprinting just to keep up. But the speed feels intentional, expressive of the stakes. Veatch isn’t offering the comfort of a slow, meditative documentary; she’s sounding an alarm. The film moves like someone who knows time is running out.

There’s something bracingly fearless about her approach. She treats the supposed mystique of AI not as something to revere, but as something to interrogate and puncture. At moments, she feels like a one-woman Scooby-Doo gang, gleefully pulling masks off so-called “intelligent” systems and revealing the banal, troubling power structures underneath. The ghosts, she argues, aren’t supernatural at all. They’re ideological extensions of entrenched systems of domination dressed up as technological inevitability.

In less capable hands, this could easily have become a scolding lecture. Instead, Veatch brings a sly wit and playful energy that keeps the film crackling with life. There’s a sense of joy in the act of dismantling false narratives, a pleasure in watching hollow rhetoric collapse under careful scrutiny. Her anger is real, but so is her intellectual generosity. The experts she assembles are allowed to be passionate, funny, cutting, and deeply thoughtful. Their arguments land not because the film bludgeons you into agreement, but because the rigor is undeniable. Only the most willfully invested AI hype merchants could watch this and not feel at least a flicker of discomfort.

In a media landscape saturated with breathless futurism and venture-capitalist propaganda, “Ghost in the Machine” feels like someone finally turning down the volume so we can hear ourselves think. Veatch never appears on screen, but her presence is unmistakable. The comparison to Michael Moore is tempting not stylistically, but in spirit. Like Moore at his best, she channels public frustration into something coherent and mobilizing, tailored for a world that now exists largely online.

The film isn’t without its missteps. There are moments where Veatch experiments with using AI-generated material within the documentary itself, ostensibly to expose its ugliness. The intention is clear, and there’s a bitter, almost poetic irony in watching synthetic images depict data centers devouring the planet. But these sequences don’t always feel earned. The metaphor is blunt, and the point is already well made elsewhere. There’s a sense that the film briefly succumbs to the very spectacle it’s critiquing. Fortunately, these moments are detours rather than derailments. The larger achievement remains formidable.

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And then, almost jarringly, the conversation pivots to a completely different film: “Chasing Summer,” directed by Josephine Decker and written by and starring Iliza Shlesinger. Where Veatch’s documentary feels like a battle cry, this film feels cautious. More to the point, it feels far closer to Shlesinger’s comedic persona than to Decker’s distinctive directorial voice. For those who remember the ferocity and formal daring of “Madeline’s Madeline” or the chilly psychological unease of “Shirley,” it’s hard not to feel a twinge of disappointment. That Decker seems to have stepped back, creatively speaking, is the film’s quietest but most persistent sadness.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with making a genre-conscious romantic comedy. In fact, when done with intelligence and invention, the form can be quietly radical. But “Chasing Summer” rarely commits to that kind of reinvention. Instead, it mostly settles for familiarity. For fans of Shlesinger’s stand-up, her rhythms and sensibilities will be recognizable and often pleasant. But the film around her feels oddly constrained, as though everyone involved decided not to risk alienating anyone.

There are fleeting moments where the movie hints at something wilder. Occasionally, a chaotic beat of comedy lands with real energy. You feel, briefly, what the film might have been if it had leaned into that messiness. But most of the time, it plays things frustratingly safe.

Decker’s direction gestures toward deeper themes the idea that Jamie, the protagonist, might be compulsively drawn to disaster as a way of avoiding her own emotional wreckage is genuinely compelling. It’s the kind of psychologically rich premise Decker has explored with devastating effectiveness before. But here, the film barely scratches the surface. Scenes come and go without accumulating meaning. The editing feels awkward, as though entire emotional arcs were trimmed down to bullet points. As the narrative progresses, the film grows more cluttered with contrivances, not more resonant. What should feel like mounting emotional pressure instead feels like narrative exhaustion.

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We meet Jamie through a framing device an interview that promises retrospective insight and the film clearly wants us to experience a clever sense of dramatic irony. But it’s such a familiar device, used so mechanically, that its impact evaporates almost immediately. By the time the story loops back to that interview, you’ve likely forgotten it was ever meant to matter.

Jamie’s situation, on paper, sounds ripe for emotional depth. Her boyfriend leaves abruptly. Her belongings are already boxed away. She returns, defeated, to her parents’ home in small-town Texas. She reconnects with old flames, flirts with new possibilities, and drifts through the uncertainty of reinvention. These are potent narrative ingredients. They’re also the backbone of countless made-for-TV dramas. And unfortunately, “Chasing Summer” often resembles the latter more than the former.

There are hints early on that the film might subvert these expectations, that it might interrogate the very clichés it appears to be invoking. But those gestures never develop into a coherent vision. Instead, the story dutifully hits familiar beats: romantic indecision, family tension, career confusion. And because the film spends so much time circling the past, moments of genuine transformation feel unearned. Jamie makes major decisions, but the emotional groundwork hasn’t been laid. We’re told she’s changing more than we’re shown.

The construction of individual scenes doesn’t help. Transitions feel abrupt. Emotional beats don’t always connect. There’s a pervasive sense that the film is slightly out of sync with itself, like a melody that never quite resolves. In an odd way, that fragmentation mirrors Jamie’s internal state but it doesn’t feel deliberate enough to be effective.

There’s an irony in watching Decker, a filmmaker once celebrated for taking enormous aesthetic and narrative risks, now retreat into the comfort of convention. That safety yields moments of mild charm, but very little that lingers once the credits roll. Shlesinger does solid work she’s grounded, likable, occasionally sharp but the film surrounding her doesn’t rise to meet her.

When a late twist arrives, the film seems to expect shock. Instead, it triggers a kind of cinematic déjà vu. You can almost hear the echoes of other romantic comedies that have executed the same maneuver with greater wit and emotional clarity. Think about it for more than a moment, and the logic of the story starts to unravel. The climax wants to feel cathartic. But the path there is so muddled, so overstuffed with half-baked ideas, that the emotional payoff feels more exhausting than moving.

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In the end, the contrast between these two films is striking. Where “Ghost in the Machine” feels alive to the world, vibrating with urgency and purpose, “Chasing Summer” feels oddly detached from both its own potential and the traditions it draws from. One film confronts its moment with ferocity. The other tiptoes around its own ambitions. And as a viewer, you can’t help but feel the difference in your bones.

Chasing Summer (2026) Parents Guide

Violence & Intensity: There is no physical violence to speak of, and certainly nothing graphic. The “intensity” here is emotional rather than physical: breakups, arguments with family members, awkward romantic confrontations, and moments of personal crisis. These scenes can carry some emotional weight, heartbreak, disappointment, frustration but they’re handled in a soft, conventional way.

Language: The language is mild to moderate. Expect occasional uses of common profanity (e.g., “shit,” “damn,” possibly “f—k” in emotional moments), but not with relentless frequency. There are no indications of slurs being used in a hateful way; the tone of the film is fundamentally earnest and inoffensive.

Sexual Content / Nudity: There are kissing, flirtation, and brief references to sexual relationships, yet there’s no explicit sexual activity and no meaningful nudity. The film gestures toward adult relationships without lingering on physicality. It’s more emotionally awkward than sexually charged.

Drugs, Alcohol & Smoking: There is no significant depiction of drug use, and smoking is not a notable element. Substance use is background texture rather than a thematic focus.

Age Recommendations: This is appropriate for most teens and older viewers. Ages 12 and up should be comfortable with the content, particularly viewers who already consume mainstream romantic comedies or streaming dramedies.

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