The end of Meditations, Marcus Aurelius’s collection of reflections, has the Roman emperor appealing for grace in death. “Why do you hunger for length of days?” If the point of life is spiritually accepting the natural progression of things, to live with joy and reason in the present, then death holds no terror. “Pass on your way, then, with a smiling face,” he wrote, “under the smile of him who bids you go.“
In The Summer Book, eight-year-old Sophia (Emily Matthews) gathers with her grandmother (Glenn Close) and father (Anders Danielsen Lie) on an archipelago off the Gulf of Finland to pass lazily the foot of time, and, perhaps, attempt a smile at that which bids them go. Sophia’s mother has recently passed away, and all three members of this intergenerational family are here to enjoy the tranquil beauty of the seemingly untouched land.
The Summer Book Stirs Without Ever Leaning Into The Morose
Charlie McDowell, working in a markedly different spirit than the psychological suspense of The One I Love, adapts Tove Jansson’s novel of the same name in a gorgeous, minimalist portrait of a family in quiet, unspoken grief. With one family member already gone, Sophia and her father mosey around the island in silent acceptance of Grandmother’s upcoming passing. Being a child, Sophia is prone to curious exploration and occasional bouts of complaints of boredom; her father spends most of his time at the drafting board, designing jackets for publishers; Grandmother smokes cigarettes and indulges in a continuous, defiant smile at the rippling wind.
Despite its heavy context, The Summer Book is a film of miraculous contentment. Glenn Close, who anchors the film in a transformative role, is heartbreaking in her aching appreciation of life’s small wonders. Grandmother, clad as she is in an array of sartorially striking outfits, exemplifies a rare form of self-acceptance. She is not dressing this way for anyone but herself, nor is she willing to “hunger for length,” as Aurelius puts it, but rather a continuous rooting in the here and now.
As the summer progresses, Sophia begins to create a handmade binder of mementos that give the film its name. The three amble around each other in quotidian pleasures and prepare for Midsommar. Other than a small handful of flashes of emotion, The Summer Book is more concerned with the ruptures underneath the surface and the ripples of life that continue regardless of death. To distract her granddaughter from her misery, Grandmother practices armchair philosophy: “Do you think there are more fish in the sea or stars in the sky?” They agree it’s probably stars, but it’d be a pain to count.
The film is situated in an isolated cabin on an isolated island. It’s the type of place you assume you’ll be able to escape, only to find nothing is ever truly forgotten, least of all trauma. Screenwriter Robert Jones uses his characters to explore this seeming contradiction, and the ways that people of different ages and experiences might cope with the same loss. While Sophia plays around and explores the latent magic of the Scandinavian landscape, Father removes himself to the background to bury himself in work, leaving Grandmother to ruefully breathe in, through her wheezing lungs, the last days of her life.
One life has ended, another is just beginning, a third is almost done, and a fourth is probably somewhere in the middle of it all. But we assume these markers of time, don’t we? Life is given or taken away at any moment; its end is rarely precipitated by any pronouncement. And yet, the suddenness is what makes life so beautiful in its challenge to stay present.
Life and death, growth and decay — it all happens in organic ebbs and flows. It is a movement that McDowell and cinematographer Sturla Brandth Grøvlen make indelible through a continuous capture of the lapping of the water against the rocks, the crackling of ice in the water, the jarring introduction of an earth-shattering storm.
Emily Matthews’s Role is An Instruction In Absorbing The Beauty Of Existence
Grandmother’s sickness notwithstanding, she seems to implicitly understand how death never comes fully announced. Instead of worrying so, she delights in the texture of moss, the wind, the taste of her hand-rolled cigarettes, and the sound of her phonograph. Perhaps her denouement is a freedom to more liberally enjoy the delights of her life, or perhaps she is ignoring the heartbreak of burying a child. But who’s to say what is the “proper” way to mourn one’s own or another’s life?
The Summer Book does, at times, risk sinking into the realm of “great gowns, beautiful gowns.” One too many times, Grøvlen and McDowell return to the gentle caress of Finland’s picturesque countryside. And Hania Rani’s score feels out of place here, too grandiose for such a film of somberness. These images of the cycles of life and death risk being tedious, but for the most part, McDowell keeps it on the pulse of stirring, if light, ruminations on mortality.
It is especially moving to see how Sophia finds life in her surroundings, even in the face of death, as when she and her grandmother accidentally chop a worm in two — an opportunity for Grandmother to explain how the result will be two new worms, which leads the young girl to write a story in consideration of what it feels like to be split from the whole she was once a part of. In her youthful eyes, life feels both small and inconsequential when compared with the vastness of the world. Through her, it’s liberating to be removed from the expectations of immortality.
- Release Date
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January 31, 2025
- Runtime
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90 minutes
- Director
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Charlie McDowell
- Writers
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Robert Jones
- Producers
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Aleksi Bardy, Kevin Loader, Duncan Montgomery, Kath Mattock, Jack Selby, Lily Collins, Helen Vinogradov, Arthur Farache
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Anders Danielsen Lie
Father
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