Meloncholy ‘Summer Book’ moves slow, but steady
Movies don’t get more laid back than “My Summer Book,” a languid, but ultimately moving, adaptation of Tove Jansson’s acclaimed 1972 novel about a grieving Finnish family on holiday for the first time without its dearest loved one.
Set on an isolated islet in the Gulf of Finland, the film skillfully contrasts nature’s beauty with the emptiness and sorrow of having lost the glue that once held them together.
Hit the hardest is the departed woman’s husband, known only as Father (Anders Danielsen Lie). He’s despondent, and unlike his precocious 9-year-old daughter, Sophia (the splendid newcomer Emily Matthews), bathed in self-pity. Both she and her feisty grandmother (Glenn Close) try to coax him out of his stupor, but to no avail. Still, they aren’t about to allow him to spoil their kesӓ, spending the long days island hopping, playing cards, having picnics and exploring abandoned lighthouses.
Yet, like Father, they sense a keen absence. Director Charlie McDowell enables us to feel that loss, not so much in words as in actions. Accordingly, Robert Jones’s adaptation of Jansson’s novel is frustratingly stingy with dialogue. But with actors this expressive, it’s not hard to comprehend how difficult it is to enjoy life when you’re dealing with so much pain.
We’re never made privy to what caused the death of Sophia’s mother. It’s not important. What is key is finding the strength to move on and honor the dead by living life to the fullest. Grandma and Sophia got the memo, but not Father, an artist who speaks sparingly and displays emotion even less. Very Scandinavian of him. But you ache for Sophia and her repeated failures to split open the cocoon he has spun around himself.
His one obsession is getting a poplar sapling to take hold in the rugged, unforgiving soil. It was his wife’s favorite variety of tree and the plan is for it to reach out to her as it inches toward heaven. McDowell gets a lot of emotional mileage out of that spindly timber, which is impressive. But too often, his pacing is so meditative, you want something, anything to happen. Even when that wish is answered by way of a dangerous, fast-moving storm, it’s gone almost as fast as it blew in. So, be prepared for some serious watch-checking.
Luckily, Close and Matthews pick up the slack. The relationship between Sophia and her Nana is subtle but powerful. It reminded me very much of the good times I had with my own grandmother, who took far better care and paid more attention to me than my distant father.
It’s very much the same here. And you can see it in the little things, like Sophia spending a night alone sleeping in a tent, just so she can help Granny jar her fuzzy memory of what it was like to be a Girl Scout, spending nights under the stars, at one with nature.
And, boy, is that nature something on the isle, all of it beautifully captured by director of photography Sturla Brandth Grøvlin, who can make poetry out of something as mundane as the tide lapping at the shore. It’s a stunningly gorgeous movie, but one that requires great patience and thought. McDowell isn’t one to spell things out. Neither is Close, who delivers one of her finest performances.
The makeup used to age her more than a decade is less than convincing. Really, it’s kinda creepy because you never see her facial muscles move, making her performance all the more remarkable. She even works Grandma’s hunched shoulders and hobbling gait to perfection. And although brave on her part, I could have done without the throwaway scene of her strolling naked through the island’s woods.
I especially appreciated her generosity toward Matthews, helping her newbie co-star sell the film’s most wrenching scenes, such as the day Sophia disses Jesus for having taken her mother. Alas, poor Lie has little to do beyond moping and looking zombified as he devotes much of his attention toward nursing the struggling poplar.
The ending is predictable, lessening its poignancy, but I can’t say I wasn’t stirred by a movie that so quietly sneaks up on you. And that’s impressive for a story that for long stretches seems to be about nothing, but reveals itself to be about everything.
Movie review
My Summer Book
Rated: Not rated
Cast: Glenn Close, Emily Matthews and Anders Danielsen Lie
Director: Charlie McDowell
Writer: Robert Jones
Runtime: 95 minutes
Where: In theaters Sept. 19 (limited)
Grade: B-
