THE STORY – Follows the inspirational tale of a young girl and her grandmother spending a summer on a small, uninhabited island in the Gulf of Finland.
THE CAST – Emily Matthews, Glenn Close, Anders Danielsen Lie, Ingvar Sigurdsson, Pekka Strang & Sophia Heikkilä
THE TEAM – Charlie McDowell (Director) & Robert Jones (Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 90 Minutes
It so often happens that the most unassuming works that elicit the strongest emotions. Finnish author Tove Jansson (1914-2001) was adept at creating stories that could entertain children while stirring in enough undercurrents of emotion to lodge in their little heads and hearts long after. The wild success of the Moomins is proof of that. Her more adult novels are less renowned, and “The Summer Book” is the first to get a significant feature adaptation. However, on the evidence of director Charlie McDowell’s adaptation, her more fantastical creatures offer more opportunities for cinematic spectacle, as this film feels too small to have much effect.
In its literary form, part of the appeal of “The Summer Book”‘ is the simplicity of its setup. Sophia (newcomer Emily Matthews) arrives at her family’s holiday home on an islet in the Gulf of Finland with her father (Anders Danielsen Lie) and grandmother (Glenn Close). There, they spend the summer trying to enjoy the summer sun while maintaining the house and grounds and getting on with work. We surmise, however, that the real reason for this holiday is who’s missing from this family. Sophia’s mother is understood to have passed away prior, and those left behind have come to the island as a way of processing their grief. “The Summer Book” is an exploration of the different ways people process a loss, and to its credit, the film adaptation doesn’t diminish that or talk down to its audience about the grieving process. The loss of Sophia’s mother hovers over these characters like a ghost. Mother is never seen and is rarely mentioned directly, but she’s the character driving the narrative forward.
The problem with the film adaptation of “The Summer Book” is that there’s not much going on in the narrative besides. The summer passes amiably enough as we watch our three leads go about their days. Grandmother goes for walks along the shore while Father plants trees and works on illustrating a book. The film is centered on Sophia, and young Matthews is given the unenviable task of bringing Sophia’s grief to the fore. It’s a challenging role for any child to play, and she deserves credit for not being precocious or hysterical in portraying Sophia’s woes. Robert Smith’s script has plenty for the characters to do, but there is little of Jansson’s grief on the page for the actors to portray, leaving them to find the characters as they go. As the film goes on, it becomes clear that the power of the grief experienced by these characters lies in the richness of Jansson’s prose. Danielsen Lie gets shortchanged in screentime, but Close does bring a twinkle to Grandmother’s eye, sharing several sweet scenes of play and reassurance with little Sophia.
McDowell has experience in tight setups with few characters (See “The One I Love” or “Windfall” as examples), but the minimal plotting of “The Summer Book” offers him little beyond an episodic series of scenes involving home improvement, sunbathing and excursions to neighboring islands. DoP Sturla Brandth Grøvlen shoots the Finnish landscape like picture postcards, conveying an idyllic childhood summer through shimmering waters and lavender sunsets. The evocative production design complements Grøvlen’s work, but the score by Hania Rani overwhelms the images, trying to fill the gap where the deeper emotions of the novel should be.
Footage of Jansson visiting the island summer house that inspired her novel plays over the end credits, and this might be enough to divert enough people to read it. If they do, they’ll be looking for the deeper swells of grief that the film adaptation of “The Summer Book” just can’t muster. It’s cozy and comfortable but too mannered and calm to leave much impact.