The first glimpse the audience receives of Water Wizz Water Park is fleeting, lost in a montage of moments at the very beginning of the 2013 film The Way, Way Back. It is not yet obvious how important that setting will be to the events that will unfold in the following 104 minutes.
The water park exists, at first, through the eyes of Duncan (Liam James), seated in the very back of his family’s car. He’s just been accosted by his mother Pam’s (Toni Collette) boyfriend, Trent (Steve Carell). The three of them, along with Trent’s daughter Steph (Zoe Levin), are en route to Trent’s beach house. The water park is one of many settings Duncan watches go by before they reach the house, which lies in a comparatively quieter, perhaps more affluent, area. The water park goes on to become a symbol of rebirth, the heart of a community, and an emblem of how one can find maturity that could not be replicated in any other setting.
Owen (Sam Rockwell), Duncan’s friend and mentor, the sardonic Cape Cod version of Yoda, is the first to mention the disparity between Trent’s affluent beach community and the Water Wizz Water Park. In asking Duncan why he continues to visit the water park, Owen says: “Not many kids head our way when the ocean’s their backyard.” Duncan does have access to the ocean, but like its destructive, unpredictable waves, the community he finds there is just as damaging. There’s Trent, who constantly finds ways to belittle and emasculate him. While his mother’s heart seems to be in the right place, she is quickly distracted by the spring break-esque fun she finds there. Trent’s daughter wants nothing to do with Duncan. Savannah (AnnaSophia Robb), the girl next door, while kind, doesn’t seem very interested in him at first. They’re all surrounded by a cliquey community of adults who seem to be bent on reliving or reimagining their high school popularity. For Duncan, this community lacks the support and respect that would be conducive to his own personal growth.
The Water Wizz Water Park, however, provides a much different environment for Duncan. Its name is a bit crass, there are pre-worn bathing suits to rent, dirty lockers to clean, and communal bath water to swim in. However, unlike the more opulent ocean-side neighborhood Duncan is residing in, there is a community there. The employees of the park are not just coworkers, but friends. They know their frequent guests by name, and vice-versa. They have affectionate nicknames, traditions, and inside jokes, seemingly shared and known by all who visit the park. They are marked by humor and kindness, a stark discrepancy from the in-jokes at the expense of others and stories marked by scandal found at the ocean. Those who spend their days at the ocean are separate from each other within the constantly moving waters, consistently thrown into turmoil that reflects the ever-changing tides. On the contrary, those at the water park have a shared experience within their man-made water. This builds a stronger community, made not of natural ties, but of similarly man-made friendships, created within the depths of the faux tide pools.
Aside from water’s purpose of powering the park and these communities, water becomes the primary symbol, the driving force behind Duncan’s growth. The Way, Way Back is, by definition, a coming of age film. Duncan begins the film as an awkward teenager who seems to be uncomfortable in his body and mind. He ends the film having found confidence and self-assurance that inspires not only the audience, but the other characters. The water that is nearly always in the background of the plot serves as a symbol for this shift.
A baptism, known as an initiation, a rebirth into society, is marked by water. Water is a cleanser, a means of washing out dirt in order to create something new. For Duncan, this literal cleansing of water becomes a metaphorical means of finding who he has the capacity to become. From the moment he enters into Water Wizz’s water, he suddenly finds he is able to laugh, with others, and at himself. The more time he spends there, the more he begins to shed the blemishes he wishes to remove — his insecurity, shyness, and overwhelming seriousness. He is thus able to replace that which holds him back with confidence, humor, and wit.
Though this reimagining of himself happens throughout the entirety of the film and the entirety of his time working at the park, the most pivotal, and obvious, moment of this phenomenon occurs at the end of the film. As he’s forced to leave the summer job he’s grown so comfortable in, Duncan rushes to Owen in order to complete one final, seemingly impossible task: passing someone on the water slide. It’s been alluded to before, even attempted at one point, but has yet to be completed. The entire community of Water Wizz patrons, all aware of the importance of this feat, gather to watch it unfold.
After first meeting Owen, Duncan slowly began to emulate Owen’s best traits. He adapts Owen’s humor, repeating his jokes and learning to go along with his bits; he learns from Owen’s confidence, from his refusal to get sucked into mundane patterns; he even wears the same sunglasses as Owen. But the final evolution of Duncan into this best self, shaped after Owen’s most admirable qualities, combined with Duncan’s own penchant for hard work and quiet kindness, comes to fruition in this final scene. As Duncan follows Owen down the tunneled water slide, the two go through a pseudo-ritual, ending with Duncan emerging from the slide first. Thus, he has become reborn into the world, as his own person, guided by Owen as his mentor. Duncan has officially come of age, illustrated using the innate structures of the water park.
The water park, with its cleansing water, strong community, and both physical and metaphorical tunnels, becomes the only setting in which Duncan could become this version of himself. It is not without irony. Just as the beach house and water park communities are juxtaposed, there is something to be said on how maturity is distinguished in both these areas. While the adults in the grown-up beach houses act like children (Susannah once describes the area as “spring-break for grownups”), Duncan finds maturity at a place more tied to childhood, the water park. Moreover, he finds his maturity in mimicking Owen, who seems to be suffering from some sort of arrested development. He lacks drive, is forgetful, and is always looking for a laugh, even in serious situations. This, perhaps, is one of the most important messages that this film conveys: growth doesn’t mean you have to grow up. Duncan discovers confidence, responsibility, and comes of age at a water park surrounded by fun-loving half adults, not at the pretentious, “grown up” beach community, nor surrounded by his teenage sort-of step sister and her friends.
The Water Wizz Water Park, though outdated and unassuming, ultimately becomes the perfect environment for Duncan to mature. It is at this park that he is able to move past Trent’s taunts, and his own personal burdens. It serves both as a metaphor for rebirth and change, but also as a literal community that allows Duncan the inspiration to find himself. Duncan finds what we all can only hope to find – a near perfect haven dedicated to uplifting and motivating.
