About this Boy

Stolen summer is about an 8-year old Irish Catholic boy Pete O'Malley (Adi Stein) who lives with his family in Chicago of 1976. His mom visits church services regularly with the kids, his dad is a brave firefighter but a bit old-fashioned man, so when Pete's older brother wants to apply for a college, the father refuses to support it. He believes that a good job is the right thing and what counts in life and education is wasting of time, smoking Pot and drinking beer. Pete still attends an elementary school and he is a little hellion, so sister Leonora Mary, his teacher, is constantly telling him that he would end up in hell one day. However the small boy thinks about it and he doesn't want to end up in hell. So he brought up a plan how to avoid it. First, he asks his priest if by accepting a mission of saving someone else would help him not to go to hell and when the priest answers positively the boy acts.

Pete has heard that Jewish people cannot go to heaven, because Jewish people have different God who doesn't live in heaven, but there is a way how to change it. Converting a Jewish boy into Catholic would allow such a Jewish boy to go to heaven and save Pete from getting into hell as well. And here is Pete's new plan!

One day he meets rabbi Jacobsen (Kevin Pollak) and he tells him about his commitment. Rabbi is amused first, but then he agrees to allow the little boy to offer a free lemonade to Jewish people in front of a synagogue even though Jewish community is not much excited about a catholic boy offering services. Pete tries a lot, but with no results.

A few days later a rabbi's house is under the fire. The boy's father rescues Danny (Mike Weinberg), a rabbi's son. Pete soon befriends him and gets a great idea of converting him. Danny is terminally ill with leukemia and Pete offers him the quest of accomplishing a decathlon so Danny can enter heaven. One of the cutest part of the movie is when Pete is offering the solution to little Danny: "If you are interested, maybe I could help you to get to heaven." and Danny asks: "When can we start?"
Both boys enter a quest of ten trials and if Danny accomplishes them all, he would be allowed to enter heaven. Big adventure starts right here.

The movie tells us another story besides a wonderful friendship of two boys. The boys also show to their parents what is the value of friendship and the power of a family. Both fathers are those who need a lesson the most. At first, they do not like each other much, because of the differences of their religion, but soon their young sons teach them how to get over it.

Stolen summer was originally created as the 12-part HBO miniseries "Project Greenlight" which finally was made into a movie, one of the most beautiful family drama. I love this movie and I strongly recommend it. It is a gentle and funny masterpiece worth owning it.

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By purchasing this movie, you would help donate to children with leukemia. Thank you.

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