Nine-year-old Sophia (Emily Matthews) spends the summers at her family’s seasonal home on a tranquil isle in the Gulf of Finland, but this will be the first summer without her mother. Her father (Anders Danielsen Lie) remains numbed by grief, while her grandmother (Glenn Close) guides her on a giddy, winding path toward young adulthood.
With a sense of infinite possibility and a tender regard for the wonders of the natural world, Sophia and her grandmother explore the terrain, celebrate the middle of summer and test the limits of faith in the face of life’s many storms.
Adapted from Tove Jansson’s beloved novel, “The Summer Book” is a delicate account of growing up and growing old, beautifully filmed on 16mm in majestic natural light.
The young lady exhibits the natural pain and despair of a kid who has lost her mom. She thinks her dad doesn’t love her anymore, because his wife is gone.
She questions family when she uses God’s name in vain. Her grandma admonishes her that God and Jesus could be considered the same.
She declares that she’s not interested in any family.
Her father is preoccupied with work and glad that the grandmother is there to pick up the slack and show the girl the meaning of social graces and usher her into young womanhood.
She questions the efficacy of God answering and/or responding to all prayers.
I have seen Close from putting a rabbit in a pot to playing a sassy grandma in a Tyler Perry flick to playing this gentle grandma—squatting to urinate in the woods. She’s always been phenomenal. The makeup in this film that made her this rugged, weather beaten looking old lady was remarkable.
It’s a great look at how loss in a child’s life can be made easier by the love of immediate family—but in a measured way, all within the right timing.
“The Summer Book” will begin screenings on September 19 at the Music Box Theatre, 3733 N. Southport Ave.
“The Baltimorons” brings a funny side to a Blessed holiday.
On Christmas Eve, Cliff, a newly sober improv comedian, cracks a tooth and lands in the emergency care of Didi, an older no-nonsense dentist. What begins as a routine check-up sparks an unpredictable evening of misadventures.
Together, Cliff and Didi fight to overcome being shut out by their families, face their biggest fears, and discover their own surprising and tender connection.
Cliff is a mess, and I know this is a comedy, but it’s a love story at heart. Cliff and his fiancée had planned a Christmas Eve celebration at her mom’s, but it is put on hold while Cliff goes to the dentist.
That dental appointment sets off a chain of events that nobody could have imagined.
There’s a trip to the auto pound to retrieve a vintage Cadillac, an unexpected appearance at an ex-husband’s party, an arrest for a DUI, an impromptu improv performance with Didi and Cliff and a kiss between the two that doesn’t quite land.
All these mishaps teach both Didi and Cliff that an unlikely business situation can turn into a friendship and eventually a romantic relationship.
Michael Strassner plays Cliff, and Liz Larsen plays the dentist Didi, a woman much more seasoned than Cliff.
Because of this age gap, often Didi can’t get a grasp of Cliff’s never ceasing levity.
“The Baltimorons,” by director Jay Duplass, was filmed entirely in Baltimore. It includes shots of rowhouses in Fells Point, the Washington Monument in Mount Vernon, the quirky holiday decorations on 34th Street in Hampden and the Key Bridge, which collapsed in March 2024 after a cargo ship collision. The film’s credits included a tribute to the six workers who died in the bridge’s destruction.
The film expands throughout the country on September 12. Check your local listings.