I’m a sucker for coming of age movies. “The Breakfast Club”, “Pretty in Pink”, hell I’ll even watch “Can’t Hardly Wait” if the mood strikes me. So I knew that a show about a young kid working at a country club during the summer of the 1980s would be right up my alley.
“Red Oaks” is exactly that. Premiering on Amazon Prime as one of their original series and executive produced by Steven Soderberg, yes THAT Steven Soderberg, “Red Oaks” is an entertaining reminder of those classic John Hughes and Harold Ramis movies.
The series follows David Myers, played by relatively unknown Craig Roberts, as a sophomore in college who spends the summer working at the local country club in New Jersey as a tennis pro. He gets involved in 80s hijinks that we all love with his friend Wheeler, as he tries to win over the club president’s daughter. The character actors all throughout this show make up the best part of it. Richard Kind, Jennifer Grey, Gina Gershon, and Paul Reiser are just a few of the main stars that play important and hilarious parts within the show. Paul Reiser especially steals every scene he’s in as club president Doug Getty. The music, the clothes, the cars, the hair, everything about this show screams 80s and I couldn’t get enough of it. The series doesn’t even feel like a tribute to that 80s coming of age genre but almost just a continuation of it. With only two seasons out, with 20 episodes in total, I recommend is definitely worth checking out when you are looking for something less serious to binge on.
-Craig
