There are films that tell stories in straightforward ways. They rely on dialogue, action, or plot twists to hold attention. Then there are films like The Summer Book. This piece of cinema feels more like poetry than prose. It moves slowly and carefully, inviting viewers to breathe with it, to gaze at its images, and to feel its silences. It can be described as a haiku of a movie, brief moments strung together that hold within them vast reflections about loss, memory, and the delicate passing of time.
Directed by Charlie McDowell, adapted from Tove Jansson’s beloved 1972 classic novel of the same title, the film brings to life a deeply personal story. Jansson, a Finnish author most recognized for her Moomin books, wrote The Summer Book as a collection of vignettes that trace family bonds and generational conversations. And much like her book, the film takes place in fragments, quiet encounters, walks, conversations, and observations, stitched loosely together like memories.
At the center of this project is Glenn Close. Known for her transformative performances, here she gives one of the most tender portrayals of her career. Close embodies a grandmother who is strong-willed, witty, and occasionally caustic, but also deeply caring and full of love for her granddaughter Sophia. Sophia, played with remarkable naturalness by newcomer Emily Matthews, provides the innocence, wonder, and blunt honesty of childhood. Between them is the third member of this tiny circle—the father, anchored by Anders Danielsen Lie, an actor whose quiet demeanor holds within it a weight of grief.
These three characters form the entire heartbeat of the film. There is the grandmother, holding on to wisdom, experience, and fading strength. There is the granddaughter, just awakening to life’s questions. And then there is the father, caught between the past he cannot let go of and the future he does not know how to step into. Together, they spend one summer on a remote island in the vast Finnish archipelago, and from these seemingly simple days emerges a reflection on what it means to live, love, and lose.
An Island of Silence and Memory
The setting is as much a character as the people. The island feels untouched, timeless, and separate from the modern world. With no technology around them apart from a fading outboard motor, the family exists in a world outside time. There is a cabin worn but familiar, paths through grass and sand, trees dotted across the landscape, and the sea that stretches endlessly. Everything here feels eternal.
When the family arrives, viewers sense immediately that they are returning to a routine. They know the place by heart. The cabin belongs to their past summers. It is a treasure of remembered moments. But beneath this comfort lies absence. The father moves through the cabin and catches sight of a straw hat hanging on the rack. His eyes stop, his body pauses, and though no words are said, the truth is heavy. That hat belonged to someone who is no longer there. His wife, Sophia’s mother, is gone. The grandmother notices this moment. Without a word of explanation, she gently removes the hat and promises to put it away. It is a quiet gesture, but one that carries deep meaning. The house holds ghosts, and the family carries grief like something folded into their movements, lingering even in silence.
Grief shapes the father most of all. He tries to smile for Sophia, to take part in her playful moments, but he is distant. Sometimes laughter comes easily, as when Sophia tosses seaweed at him and he responds with full-hearted amusement. At other times, sadness shadows his energy, pulling him inward. Sophia herself recognizes this and with the unflinching honesty of a child tells her grandmother, “He does not love me since she died.” The grandmother, though stern, confronts him eventually. She reminds him to try harder, to stay present for his daughter despite his loss.
Grandmother and Sophia: The Heart of the Film
Much of the story quietly drifts through the relationship between Sophia and her grandmother. Close and Matthews create something deeply organic and real. Their bond is not cloying or overly sentimental. It is textured with small conflicts, teasing remarks, sharp observations, and moments of comfort.
Sophia’s curiosity mirrors that of a child encountering the world for the first time. She asks questions relentlessly, sometimes about life, sometimes about fear, sometimes about the mysteries of the island. Her grandmother answers with humor, wisdom, and occasionally sharpness. She tells stories, explains truths with simplicity, and shares her experience with patience. At other times she shows a mischievous streak that aligns her closely with her granddaughter.
They share walks through grass, conversations about how the world works, and discoveries about the landscape around them. Sophia dictates a story one day and, when asked if she wishes to hear it read back to her, responds casually, “Save it for my grandchildren.” In this brief moment, the film stretches outward. Childhood and old age connect. Memory flows across generations. What is fleeting becomes lasting.
A Film of Images and Stillness
While the story is rooted in these characters, the film’s deepest power lies in its visuals and rhythm. McDowell lets the camera linger on images of waves collapsing gently on shore, on the surface of water broken by sunlight, on flowers leaning in wind, on grass brushed by air. Breathtaking shots of sunrise and the impossibly long Finnish sunsets dissolve boundaries between time and eternity.
The camera often follows simple gestures. The grandmother hobbles across uneven rocks, leaning on her cane with determination. Sophia throws herself into play, her movements unfiltered. The father quietly plants a poplar tree, a silent homage to his wife’s favorite flower, an act both of memory and of hope. These gestures make the abstract tangible. They become symbols of love, of grief, of trying to press memory into earth before it fades away.
Encounters with Others
Although much of the film centers on the three family members, there are small moments in which outsiders disrupt the island’s solitude. An older man arrives briefly to deliver fireworks for the midsummer festival. He is kind but leaves quickly. The father later says he will not return, remarking sadly that “the scent of grief drives him away.”
In another beautifully layered sequence, Sophia and her grandmother set out by boat and come across an island marked with a forbidding “No Trespassing” sign. The grandmother interprets such a sign as an unnecessary provocation, an open invitation to ignore it, and they pull ashore. Soon after they are joined by the family who lives on that land. Instead of hostility, they are welcomed warmly. This family, protective of their environment and respectful of their surroundings, wins the grandmother’s admiration. Sophia, in turn, learns from this encounter. It demonstrates how people can meet as strangers yet instantly resonate with one another.
And still, even small incidents become meaningful. At one moment the child stumbles upon a worm sliced in half. Distressed and horrified, she turns to her grandmother who reassures her lightly: “Now it will become two worms.” What could be a nightmare for a child becomes another lesson about resilience, transformation, and how life moves forward.
Glenn Close’s Masterpiece
Close’s performance is what binds this delicate film together. She ages into her character with remarkable physicality—from the braid secured with hairpins to the squaring of her shoulders and the careful, uneven determination in her walk. Every gesture tells a story. When she hobbles across rocky ground, you see the world she has lived in. When her hand rests softly on Sophia’s small head, or gently later on her son’s, you feel the history of care contained in her touch.
Acting alongside a child is not easy. It requires flexibility, attentiveness, and the ability to guide without overtaking. Close does all of this with grace. She allows Sophia’s natural spontaneity to breathe, adapting instead of controlling, building responses that feel entirely authentic. Her work here is one of nuance, presence, and generosity.
The grandmother seems at once a companion to Sophia and a mirror for the audience. She is aging, holding on to memory, aware of the brevity of days, yet always reaching toward connection. Sitting with Sophia under the sun or telling her stories at quiet moments, she embodies the longing to pass wisdom forward before time runs out.
A Meditation on Mortality
There are no grand dramatic revelations in The Summer Book. No climactic battles are fought, no earth-shattering decisions are made. The power of the film is in its subtlety. It reflects the way grief settles into ordinary days, how laughter and longing exist side by side, how memory survives in the smallest gestures.
For the child, time still feels endless. This is why she can imagine grandchildren before her life has even begun. For the grandmother, time feels precious, vanishing, already slipping away. For the father, time has collapsed. His desire to exist in the past prevents him from moving fully into the present. Within these perspectives lies the whole spectrum of human experience.
By the film’s closing images, viewers feel the paradox of summer days. They stretch on endlessly but also vanish in an instant. Like childhood, like old age, like life itself, the time spent on that island holds immense meaning even as it recedes almost too quickly to grasp.
Closing Reflections
The film closes with something that reaches beyond the fictional. Over the ending credits, footage of Tove Jansson herself appears. Her hair adorned with bright midsummer flowers, she stands on the real island that inspired her book. The circle completes itself. The story returns to its beginning, blurring art and life, memory and reality.
The Summer Book is not a film for those seeking action or fast storytelling. It is meant to be felt slowly, patiently, like sitting near the sea and listening to waves one after another. It is a reminder that moments—however simple, however quiet—carry the weight of entire lives. A child’s laughter, a grandmother’s hand, a father’s silence, a straw hat no longer worn—these are the building blocks of our memories, the delicate fibers of family stories.
Above all, it is a film that lingers. Long after the screen fades, viewers will carry with them images of water and sun, of the tiny boat across still sea, of a girl dictating her story with no awareness of all the stories already holding her. It is a meditation on living, on loving deeply, and on the inevitable truth that we will one day have to say goodbye.
