Article by Brigitta Mariuzzo

Translation by Martina Perrero

Grief is an island in the middle of the sea, where the summers of childhood have been embedded. A suspended place, waiting for a storm that is slow to break and of the arrival of those who have long since failed to return.

Sophia, her father and grandmother arrive at the vacation home where they spent their summers, located on a small island in the Gulf of Finland. Father and daughter carry the weight of a grief that has driven them apart, prompting them to close in, each in his or her own way. Bridging this distance is the grandmother (played by Glenn Close), whose ancestral wisdom seems rooted in her connection with nature and, therefore, to the island itself. A bond so strong that her breathing and the tides seem to follow the same rhythm.

Absence and suffering are the central themes of McDowell’s film, told through the eyes of three generations who experience them simultaneously but in different ways. Loneliness, also generated by the geographical location of the island, is both the refuge for a quietness that cherishes memories and the cage from which no one can leave or let anyone in.

The Summer Book shows, through its protagonists, the different ways in which one can break out of this cage and deal with pain (and, perhaps, with life itself): diving headfirst, elegantly, aiming to reach the depths and then re-emerge lighter, or diving-bomb, generating a huge impact and making as much noise as possible. Or, again, watching from the shore, lying on a rock, realizing that little by little it is possible to let go, as the sun rises again over the sea.