Our take
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.
What it won
NYFCC
1 win
LAFCA
1 win
César Awards
2 noms
The story
After the death of a septuagenarian woman, her three children deliberate over what to do with her estate.
Elsewhere
"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
Streaming arrival
Who picked it
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.
Happy everyday！
人生不如意十之八九，开心最重要！