The Summer Book

Intergenerational stories told through books and film – especially those involving touching interactions between grandparents and grandchildren – are longtime family favorites beloved for their inspiration, endearment and exploration of significant life lessons. One popular offering in this vein is The Summer Book, a 1972 novel by Swedish-Finnish author Tove Jansson, the foundation for this latest cinematic project from director Charlie McDowell. This fictional tale, based on members of Jansson’s own family, tells the story of a recently widowed father (Anders Danielsen Lie) who spends the summer at a family vacation home on a remote island in the Gulf of Finland with his young daughter, Sophia (Emily Matthews), and her wise old grandmother (Glenn Close, who’s inexplicably and uncannily made up to look like the second coming of Mrs. Doubtfire). The narrative largely consists of a series of conversations between Sophia and her granny about an array of life’s big questions (many related to growing up and growing old), most of which take place on various nature outings and in late night talks in the intimate surroundings of the family home. There are also several grownup dialogues between Grandma and her son, who’s having noticeable difficulty working through the grief of losing his wife and, consequently, finds himself less able to communicate with his daughter. By all rights, this would seem to provide the makings for a picture filled with a series of successive special moments (even though, in all honesty, Sophia, as she’s portrayed here, seems to be a little too old for asking some of the patently juvenile questions she raises, inquiries much more realistically suited to someone her junior). Unfortunately, those hoped-for results rarely surface in this offering, given that the script is painfully thin, smotheringly earnest, and riddled with far too many hypothetical open-ended questions that lead nowhere and frequently lack pertinence. What’s more, the film is highly episodic in nature with a strung-together mélange of meandering, unfocused events that lack meaningful underpinnings or relevant connection to one another. This release thus often plays like a poorly written young adult/tweener novel consisting of random occurrences that are supposed to seem like they add up to something profound but never do. The film’s overdramatic score, with its grand, swirling passages that lead one to believe that something important is about to happen (but, once again, doesn’t) continually leaves viewers deflated and unimpressed (perfect fodder for a Mystery Science Theater 3000 bit). And then there are some just plain odd sequences thrown in without explanation or apparent relevance, such as when Grandma goes for a swim and then puzzlingly exits the water and goes for a walk, naked, in the woods. (Huh?) While I must confess that I have not read the source material for this release, I have perused a number of reviews that have suggested the novel on which this film is based probably wasn’t a suitable choice from which to make a picture, given that it’s tone is more subtle, nuanced and meditative than what a filmmaker could probably capture and effectively depict in a movie. And, based on the finished product, that assessment would seem to be squarely on target. “The Summer Book” comes across like a production that struggles to translate its story from page to screen, and, while it might have some appeal to those who have read (and love) the book, it mostly leaves unfamiliar viewers unsatisfied, mystified and suffocated by its overwrought sincerity, cryptic happenings and melodramatic accentuations. Indeed, it’s one summer that many of us probably can’t wait to end.