Movie Review Summer Hours

Summer Hours (2008) 

Directed by Olivier Assayas 

Written by Olivier Assayas 

Starring Juliette Binoche, Charles Berling, Kyle Eastwood

Release Date March 5th, 2008

Published November 2nd, 2008

What French director Olivier Assayas accomplishes in 1 hour and 42 minutes of his simple, heartfelt Summer Hours, is something most American directors will never be capable of. With little incident and not one forced moment, Assayas rivets the audience. Here is a sparse yet warm family drama that never resorts to neurosis or pandering though it so easily could.

It's a remarkable thing to behold. It's not that nothing happens in Summer Hours but rather that Mr. Assayas sees no need to underline things, no need for punctuation and absolutely no need for the devices most American writers and directors use to shove an audience from one scene to the next.

The story unfolds at a glorious French manse where three adult children of Helene have come to celebrate her 75th birthday, though she has no patience for the counting of the years. Helene is foremost concerned with her death and with the legacy she has been building and maintaining for decades.

The home had belonged to Helene's uncle, a famed painter. He passed decades ago and Helene has made it her life's work to give him a life after death. Now with her passing she is painfully aware of all that will happen, her life's work will be carved up and sold away. That sounds dramatic but Helene treats it as a simple fact and the sadness lingers until indeed she does pass.

Her children are not unkind or insensitive; they've merely moved on and begun building their own legacy. Jeremie is a successful shoe company exec living in China, Adrienne lives in New York City and is successful in the fashion biz. Frederic, the oldest, is the only one of Helene's children still living in Paris. He's an economist and author with two kids of his own.

Perhaps because of proximity or perhaps because he has all the paperwork to do, Frederic is the most attached to the home and his mother's belongings. Jeremie and Adrienne are not indifferent but far more practical. Neither will be able to make use of the house, they could all use the money and the art has a home waiting at the Musee D'Orsay. 

You can see the potential for great melodrama. You can assume Frederic to cause trouble and drama. You can expect these things but they never come. Instead, in a true rarity, all the characters act as adults and treat the situation as real adults do. There are hurt feelings and some tears, but for the most part, Summer Hours is a movie about how a functioning family deals with loss. 

A quietly brilliant movie, Summer Hours is likely too gentle for audiences raised on modern American drama. For fans of a more refined taste, Summer Hours is a hypnotic, peaceful joy of a movie.