The Way Way Back

Fourteen year old Duncan's young teenaged life is not going well, with his parents long having been divorced, he living with his caterer mother, Pam. He is generally withdrawn partly because of not having positive adult role models. Pam has been dating car salesman Trent for close to a year, he who Duncan doesn't much like as boorish and condescending, especially toward him. Rather than spend the time with his father - which he would rather be a permanent situation regardless in light of Trent - Duncan is forced to accompany Pam, Trent and Trent's cliquey teenaged daughter Steph on their regular summer-long vacation to Trent's beach-front house, where they will hang out with other summertime regulars of the area: divorced Betty, a loud woman, and her two children, equally cliquey teenaged Susanna, and nerdish preteen Peter who has a lazy eye; and married couple Kip and Joan. With no obvious people he wants to associate with among this bunch, Duncan, in exploring, finds his way to the Water Wizz water park. There, he befriends the park staff, primarily taken under the wing of the park's manager, Owen, a slacker with a happy-go-lucky attitude toward life. In addition to getting beyond first impressions to find others who are kindred souls in one way or another, Duncan, in his friendships at Water Wizz, has a chance to blossom this summer at least to face the challenges he has in his life head on, instead of cowering in the corner as he has done of late.