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Two brothers and a sister witness the disappearance of their childhood memories when they must relinquish the family belongings to ensure their deceased mother's succession.

Juliette Binoche, Charles Berling, and Jérémie Renier in Summer Hours (2008)

An often real feeling film wobbles thanks to a too carefully constructed plot

&#39;Summer Hours&#39; (otherwise known as L&#39;Heure D&#39;ete) is the story of three siblings who must decide what to do with the family house and most of the property in it after their mother passes away. The movie begins with the siblings (Frederic, Adrienne and Jeremie) visiting their mother Helene at the mother&#39;s home. Adrienne is now living in the US with a boyfriend and Jeremie has just gotten a promotion in China where he lives with his wife and children. Frederic is the only sibling who still lives in France and is an economist who has just written a controversial book disparaging his own profession. We find out in an overly long Act I that Helene was a champion of a famous artist who happened to be her uncle. It&#39;s not clear whether Helene was intimately involved with the uncle but apparently favored him over her husband. She has kept some of his art work, sketch books and other items he purchased while he was alive and now orders Frederic to sell everything including the house. After Helene dies, Frederic wants to keep the house and all the heirlooms but is overruled by Adrienne and Jeremie. Frederic finally gives in, the house is put up for sale and a good deal of the artwork and furniture is bequeathed to the Musee D&#39;Orsay (museum). There is a subplot toward the end where Frederic&#39;s teenage daughter is almost arrested for shoplifting and drug possession but a kindly police officer only lets her off with a warning. The film ends with the daughter holding a party with her teenage friends just before the house is sold to new owners. The film&#39;s strength lies in very strong portraits of the three siblings and their mother. We find out quite a bit about their careers as well as how they interact with their respective spouses. The dialogue can best be described as both mature and sharp. Particularly impressive are the scenes where the siblings cope with the death of their mother. Frederic is perhaps most affected by his mother&#39;s death—there&#39;s a strong scene where he stops his car and is overcome with emotion—unable to stifle the tears due to his mother&#39;s sudden passing. The film&#39;s weakness involves the plot. Up until the midpoint of the film we&#39;re absorbed in the conflict between Frederic and his two siblings over the disposition of the property. When that issue is resolved (Frederic cannot counter his siblings&#39; need for money), the story feels like it has ended. There is a very long-winded section where we learn about the mechanics of bequeathing artwork to a museum but all of this feels like a footnote to the main conflict which has come to an end. The point is made that when a person comes to the end of their life, all their possessions which might have had so much meaning to them, no longer matters to the next generation. It&#39;s a point that needs to be made but not drawn out as it was done here. What&#39;s lost is the conflict between the characters; instead in its place we&#39;re given more of a lecture on art history and restoration akin to a Discovery Channel documentary. Summer Hours has no dark moment for the protagonist unless you call Frederic&#39;s daughter&#39;s near-arrest a moment of crisis. There is also no real antagonist left at the film&#39;s climax to create tension in the storyline. In a sense, the passage of time is the antagonist. The ending is supposed to be wistful—a bunch of teenagers party at the family home completely oblivious to the rich memories and traditions the house evokes. Despite the weakness of its story which peters out in the second half, Summer Hours has some great characters and dialogue. The film is worth seeing due to the maturity of the subject matter and superb acting on the part of the cast.

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Summer Hours

Olivier Assayas&#39;s tale of three siblings who have to deal with the aftermath of their mother&#39;s death. A good film but hardly the knock out that many of the local New York papers made it out to be. The film works in small moments, moments or odd passages. The opening of the film as we watch the family buzzing around the familial home for the matriarch&#39;s 75th birthday is very real and you have the feeling that perhaps we are intruding on a real family.A later scene where the mother corners her son and explains what she wants after she goes will echo with anyone who has had that sort of conversation with a parent. A later scene where the members of the family visit a museum and see their mother&#39;s things there is funny because of how they react to the art and telling in that it kind of puts the detritus of our lives in perspective. The rest is good but it didn&#39;t completely hang with me. For me the film is possibly the best film that I&#39;ve seen by Olivier Assayas. I&#39;ve seen Clean, Boarding Gate and a couple of others and this seems to be the first time where he didn&#39;t loose the plot or seem to take left turns suddenly to keep things going. I will say that the film suffers a slight case of feeling constructed instead of natural (this is the films major flaw). Once we get the mother and son going over her wishes (which works as a scene unto itself) the film seems destined in some way to follow a certain course and hit certain moments in a preordained way. The naturalness of the first fifteen or twenty minutes where everything flowed nicely is replaced by good solid scenes that were placed in their spot with care that isn&#39;t as life like. I&#39;m annoyed because I was so certain that I was going to love this film from the opening moments, only I found that I ended up linking it instead. Still its a good film and worth a look, though I think you may be wise to do what I did and see it on cable.(This was one of the choices of the IFC in Theaters on demand service) since I can&#39;t in all honesty recommend this for 11 bucks a head in a theater.

This film has some things going for. The &quot;summer home&quot; which is the centrepiece of this film is lovely indeed. The story surrounds three siblings whose mother dies and they must deal with both the &quot;summer home&quot; and its contents. It&#39;s all done very humanly and without the buffoonery found in most &quot;Hollywood films&quot;. The pace is slow and no big secrets are revealed. I got the feeling that if you haven&#39;t gone through the process of a parent dying and selling off the ancestral home this film would be far less appealing. I&#39;ve gone through this whole ordeal and felt the film did capture the essence of it. But at times it was kind of like an &quot;Antique Road Show&quot; and my attention was starting to wander. Also the ending was somewhat trivial.

User reviews

Summer Hours

Strong Characters and Dialogue/Weak Plot

An often real feeling film wobbles thanks to a too carefully constructed plot

The Ancestral Home

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