Summer Hours (2008) | agoodmovietowatch
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Summer Hours 2008

An affecting family drama that also asks questions about art, home, and mortality

Our Take (by Renee Cuisia)

Summer Hours centers on three siblings tasked with sorting the valuable pieces their mother left behind. Frédéric (Charles Berling), the eldest, has different ideas about inheritance than his overseas siblings. Will their beloved house stay or go? Will the art? The furniture? Can they afford to keep all these for sentimental reasons or would it be wiser to sell them? They go back and forth on these questions, rarely agreeing but always keeping in mind the life these seemingly inanimate objects occupy, as well as the memories they evoke, which are beyond priceless.

Summer Hours resists melodrama, opting instead for the simple power of restraint—of unspoken words and charged glances. And the result is a quietly affecting movie that basks in the details to paint a wonderful, overall picture of home and family.

Notable Critics

"In the end, Assayas, shooting the film with relaxed, flowing camera movements, gives his love not to beautiful objects but to the disorderly life out of which art is made."

— David Denby

"( ... ) Summer Hours is Assayas's best film set on home turf-the one that best puts things in perspective and loudly proclaims that one must know how to shed dead skin to go on living."

— Frédéric Bonnaud

Synopsis

After the death of a septuagenarian woman, her three children deliberate over what to do with her estate.

Awards

NYFCC

1 win

Won: Best Foreign Language Film

LAFCA

1 win

Won: Best Foreign Film

César Awards

2 nominations

Nominated: Best Supporting ActressNominated: Official Selection: Best Supporting Actress

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About the author

Renee Cuisia

Renee Cuisia

Renee Cuisia is the lead curator at A Good Movie to Watch. In her spare time, she likes to watch K-dramas and analyze them to death. She's also seen You've Got Mail one too many times but is still convinced it's one of the greatest films out there.