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Movie Review: Summerland

Mike Tyrkus

As far as feature debuts for a writer/director go, there have been few as rewarding as Summerland, the first endeavor from award-winning playwright turned filmmaker Jessica Swale. Utilizing breathtaking English locations and anchoring a wartime drama that sneaks in a wickedly effective love story, replete with fine performances all around, Summerland is that rarest of experiences, a film that somehow manages to make everything in it seem fresh, bright, and new again.

Alice (played by Gemma Arterton) is a reclusive writer, resigned to a solitary life on the seaside cliffs of Southern England while the horrid events of World War II rages on across the channel. When, one day, she opens her front door to learn that she is now expected to watch over a young London evacuee named Frank (Lucas Bond). Although she is resistant at first, it is not long before the two realize they have more in common than either of them had assumed.

The finest quality of Summerland is the pace at which it lets its story play out. There is no expedited route that is taken to get to where the characters inevitably have to go, nor does anything play as tedious or unneeded. Everything is in place for a reason (and that plays as the underlying theme throughout the film as well).

Arterton is uncannily entertaining a Alice and effortlessly makes Alice’s solitary life choices seem perfectly logical and reasonable given the circumstances of her life. That is, of course, until Frank arrives and turns everything on end. Similarly, Bond holds his own throughout and manages to give young Frank a sense of innocence that is threatened by the increasingly tragic events of the war unfolding around him that ultimately allow him to serve as a surrogate everyman for the audience. Additionally, the story itself is bookended with scenes featuring Penelope Wilton as an older, possibly wiser, Alice reflecting on and writing about the events seen unfolding onscreen.

Hovering at just around 100 minutes, the film seems barely long enough to pack all of the emotion punches into it that is does, but that just proves what a fine job both Swale and Atterton have done in bringing both the story and character of Alice to life. Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Tom Courtenay also bring pathos and considerable warmth to the proceedings via their respective turns as Vera and Mr. Sullivan. Dixie Egerickx similarly shines as a free-spirited, open-minded classmate of Frank’s.

Given how enthralling and mesmerizing the whole of Summerland proves to be, one hopes that Jessica Swale is able to successfully pursue filmmaking as a full-time vocation and then return to writing plays only when the mood strikes.

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Mike Tyrkus

Editor in Chief at CinemaNerdz.com
An independent filmmaker, co-writer and director of over a dozen short films, the Editor in Chief of CinemaNerdz.com has spent much of the last three decades as a writer and editor specializing in biographical and critical reference sources in literature and the cinema, beginning in February 1991 reviewing films for his college newspaper. He was a member of the Detroit Film Critics Society, as well as the group's webmaster and one-time President for over a decade until the group ceased to exist. His contributions to film criticism can be found in Magill's Cinema Annual, VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever (of which he was the editor for nearly a decade until it too ceased to exist), the International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, and the St. James Film Directors Encyclopedia (on which he collaborated with editor Andrew Sarris). He has also appeared on the television program Critic LEE Speaking alongside Lee Thomas of FOX2 and Adam Graham, of The Detroit News. He currently lives in the Detroit area with his wife and their dogs.

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