After spending almost thirty years writing about the Moomins, Finnish author Tove Jansson turned her attention to adults with her 1972 novel The Summer Book, a collection of loosely connected vignettes following a young girl and her elderly grandmother on a tiny island in the Gulf of Finland Charlie McDowell adaptation brings a more conventional narrative to Jansson’s episodic book, leaning further into the grief of nine-year-old Sophia (Emily Matthews), whose mother has recently died, and the looming death of her increasingly frail grandmother (Glenn Close).
Close gives a good-natured performance, playing Grandmother with quiet reflection and a knowing twinkle in her eye. She is approaching the end of her life, and knows it, but there is little self-pity; instead, she clambers across rocks, swims in the sea and entertains Sophia’s whims with affection and gentle exasperation. In her introductory role Matthews does well as a restless child for whom an endless summer is starting to feel a little too endless, though her out-of-place British drama-school accent occasionally jars. There is a poignant contradiction between them: Sophia is bored of the very summer her grandmother yearns to hold onto. In many ways, they could be the same person seventy years apart – one impatient for life to begin, the other wishing it would slow down. Against the beautiful Finnish scenery and gentle, ebb and flow of the piano score, they represent the inevitable passage of time, even whilst the island itself remains timeless.
Where Jansson’s book is cherished for its stark prose, simplicity, and the resonance of things unsaid, the film doesn’t always have the same confidence. Characters overtly vocalise thoughts and feelings, instead of allowing their actions to suggest deeper, or more ambiguous meaning. That’s not to say McDowell is unsuccessful in bringing Jansson’s serene observations to the screen. The film may be less episodic and more openly concerned with grief than its source material, but the central relationship remains quietly moving.
The Summer Book is deliberately small, gentle filmmaking. Those hoping for much in the way of plot may find themselves as restless as Sophia, and the deliberate pace will not be for everyone. But for those happy to spend a summer pottering around a beautiful Finnish island in the company of loving companions, The Summer Book is a warm treat.
The Summer Book is screening from 3rd – 10th September
By Matthew Onuki Luke
