Hulu’s Summer of 69 pairs Chloe Fineman and Sam Morelos in a teen comedy that stands out for its honest approach to female sexuality and friendship. While the film follows familiar genre conventions, the leads’ chemistry brings unexpected depth and charm. Let’s explore how Fineman and Morelos elevate the story and why their performances are worth watching.
Insights: Lessons From Chloe Fineman and Sam Morelos
- Build genuine on-screen chemistry with your co-stars to elevate even familiar or formulaic material.
- Infuse your character with depth and authenticity, letting real emotions and vulnerabilities show.
- Collaborate and react naturally with scene partners to create believable, memorable relationships.
The Snapshot: Summer of 69 in a Nutshell
An inexperienced high school senior who hears that the newly single boy she has loved her whole life is a big fan of 69ing enlists a stripper to teach her about sex so she can do it with him.
(Summer of 69 is now available for viewing on Hulu)
The Performances of Chloe Fineman and Sam Morelos
Most teen comedies tend to be of the dime-a-dozen variety. One kid wants another kid and will go to great lengths to get them, usually with the intention of hilarity ensuing. Often, there is no such hilarity, but that doesn’t stop people from telling some version of the same story over and over again.
Through the years, the genders have swapped, and there has been an increasing number of same-sex protagonists in a way that would never have been accepted even 25 years ago, but the gist has always remained the same.
On the surface, the Hulu original film Summer of 69 falls directly into that category. A girl in unrequited love with a boy asks a stripper to teach her the basics about sex so the girl can score with the boy. Simple. Straightforward.
But this one is different in two major ways. The first is that it doesn’t shy from talking frankly about female sexuality, something even a lot of the femme-centric entries in this genre are reluctant to do. That’s the less important reason.
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The second and much more important one is the chemistry of the two women at the center of the story. Relative newcomer Sam Morales plays Abby, the inexperienced and highly eager impending graduate, and Saturday Night Live’s Chloe Fineman is Santa Monica, the stripper who may or may not have a heart of gold. It’s because of them, and the light and deftness they bring to their respective roles, as well as the innate chemistry they share, that the movie far surpasses most other films like it.
Before we get too far into this, let’s remember, once again, that this movie is a genre film, and so it does adhere to the tropes that go with it:
- The issue at hand is somewhat manufactured, the selected teacher is reluctant to help and only does so for financial reasons.
- The solution is a bit tortured and overly complicated.
- The characters themselves behave as the story dictates, rather than in a way that might be best for them.
For those reasons, it’s a reasonably predictable piece of entertainment, but it’s so much more fun than this observation might imply. This is not just because it’s genuinely funny. Thanks to Morelos and Fineman, and to a lesser extent the supporting cast, none of that other stuff matters.
The performances themselves are as charming as you would hope for a movie like this, though what’s key here is how well they play off each other. Chemistry is a funny thing because it’s not easy to manufacture.
Ideally, the two performers in question like each other, though that’s not necessarily key. Famously, Debra Winger and Richard Gere loathed each other during the filming of An Officer and a Gentleman, but go ahead and watch that movie and tell me you don’t believe the two characters are completely in love.
When it comes down to it, Morelos and Fineman play so well together it should be studied in acting classes. They bicker like sisters. Fineman’s Monica scolds Abby’s naiveté in the same way that Abby criticizes Monica’s reluctance to take any chances.
Monica takes on Abby as a project because Abby promises to pay her enough to save the strip club where Monica works, but is terrified to go to her high school reunion because “she hasn’t accomplished anything.” Through her laments about how she wasted her time in high school, she recognizes class valedictorian Abby’s intelligence and chances for success, and Fineman lets that shine through in a way that we see how she both admires Abby and resents her.
The same goes for Morelos, whose Abby desperately needs a friend, and is willing to put up with a lot of abusive crap from Monica before she reaches a breaking point. I have no idea whether Sam Morelos genuinely admires Chloe Fineman in real life, but I know she plays Abby as someone who so desperately wants to admire someone, anyone who pays her the right kind of attention, that she ends up displaying a fair amount of hero worship.
Likewise, it’s unclear whether Fineman looks at Morelos as a kind of protege, but Monica so badly needs someone to believe in her. Fineman instills in the character an integrity that a lot of other actors wouldn’t have been able to do.
It’s easy to just chalk this up to good acting, but it’s more than that. Good actors regularly display lousy chemistry with their costars. The two stars of Summer of 69 are so natural with each other, they bring a sense of realism to a movie that is otherwise sort of lacking in it.
There’s never really a question about what’s going to happen — the only thing that matters is do you like the people who are taking you on the journey, and just as important is the question of whether or not they like each other. Watching Fineman and Morelos work together, on this particular journey is an absolute pleasure.
When Abby speaks the film’s final line, sitting on a swing set beside a smiling Monica (a line I won’t spoil here), you will laugh out loud, because you will believe it.
The Acting Careers of Chloe Fineman and Sam Morelos
Chloe Fineman has appeared in plenty of movies and TV shows throughout her 15-year career, but she is best known for her five-season run on Saturday Night Live, which has featured standout impressions of celebrities like Drew Barrymore, Britney Spears, Nicole Kidman and, counterintuitively, Timothée Chalamet, among a host of others.
She’s exceedingly smart and undeniably funny, with enough talent that the Washington Post called her “the comedian we need right now.”
Before SNL, most of her work came in small film roles or an episode or three on this show or that, like the SIMUVAC Technician in Noah Baumbach’s White Noise, or her one-episode appearance as Sylvia Plath in Dickinson.
SNL has established her as a talent to watch, and Summer of 69 is her first true starring role. The genuine leading lady energy she brings to the role, though, ensures that it won’t be her last.
Sam Morelos, on the other hand, has only a fraction of that experience, though you wouldn’t know it by what you see in this film. Aside from a few short films and a supporting role in the Disney+ movie Descendants: The Rise of Red, her only major role before Summer of 69 was in the short-lived FOX sitcom That ’90s Show, which lasted two seasons before it was canceled in 2024.
The 19-year-old’s self-assuredness as a geeky teen who very badly wants to gain some sexual experience is welcome in a world where so many of these performances reek of self-consciousness.
Just as Fineman’s career should get a large boost from her work here, so is Morelos a young actress to watch. There are surely great things coming her way.
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