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Helsinki-filmi
High Frequency Entertainment
Not part of a collection.
The story of the relationship between Sophia, an eight-year-old girl who is growing up fast, and her grandmother, who is nearing the end of her life. They are spending time together with Sophia’s father, at the family summer house on a tiny unspoiled island in the Gulf of Finland. All three are coming to terms with the recent death of Sophia’s mother in very different ways.
Brent Marchant
Jan 18, 2026 · via TMDB
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.
User reviews courtesy of TMDB.
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Glenn Close
Grandmother
Anders Danielsen Lie
Father
Ingvar E. Sigurðsson
Eriksson
Pekka Strang
Mr. Malander
Sophia Heikkilä
Mrs. Malander
Sturla Brandth Grøvlen
Director of Photography
Charlie McDowell
Director
Jussi Rautaniemi
Editor
Lily Collins
Executive Producer
Aleksi Bardy
Producer
Charlie McDowell
Producer
Glenn Close
Producer
Hania Rani
Original Music Composer
Tove Jansson
Novel
Podezření
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The Prestige
Into the Woods
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Secret Violence
The Dark Swan
Rodeo
Werckmeister Harmonies
The Face of Another
The Garden of Sinners: Paradox Spiral
The Hustler
What's Eating Gilbert Grape
10 Things I Hate About You
Boogie Nights
Girl, Interrupted
Letters from Iwo Jima
Frankenstein: The True Story
Obsession
The Last King of Scotland
Cairn
The Trial
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Bicentennial Man
The Town
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
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Big
Straw Dogs
Field of Dreams
Little Children
The Virgin Suicides
The Bear
The Wrong Man
The Winter War
Whale Rider
That Most Important Thing: Love
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White Trial
Olappeeppi
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The Day of the Locust
The Ninth Configuration
Algiers
Tomato Red
Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom
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Valley of the Dolls
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Earth and Ashes
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Shem
The Horse That Cried
Jamaica Inn
Suviyön salaisuus
How I Learned to Fly
Yefon
The Art of Being Normal
Zeitoun
Endurance: The Story of Ernest Shackleton
Burning Rainbow Farm
Steam is Steam
Stigma, Style
Rembrandt
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Bobby Beauty Parlour
Finger Guns
Mučivé tajomstvo
Strýčkov sen
My French Amore
Ten lokaj
Aquí
Summer Interlude
Veliká stavba
King of Games
Mildlife
Storytellers
I Have to Fuck Before the World Ends
Forever Running Away
Untitled
White Bird
A Little Princess
Love You to Death
The Shack
Mr. Church
The Secret Garden
The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds
Fatima
A Taste of Honey
The Glass Castle
The Lovely Bones
Before I Fall
Whale Rider
Blackbird
Black or White
The Spiderwick Chronicles
The Giver
Here
My Zoe
Light of My Life
Starving in Suburbia
Bambi II
The Winter Guest
Skin
Dad
The Last Mimzy
The Secret Garden
Gold Diggers: The Secret of Bear Mountain
The Other Woman
The Truth About Emanuel
The Eternal Daughter
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Today I Hang
1942
The PanoptiCon Tapes III
1990
Sign in to vote
Battle your watched movies head-to-head
Community Top Movies
Evil Dead II
1987 · 14 wins
The Dark Knight
2008 · 14 wins
Halloween
1978 · 13 wins
Final Destination
2000 · 12 wins
Halloween II
1981 · 11 wins
Trivia
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Movie Trivia
Guess the movie from a clue — tagline, plot, cast and more. Pick from four posters.
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