Contemplative film captures joy, pain of growing up
That In the Summers is being widely released today, just at the start of fall, as long summer days become distant memories, is appropriate. The film is a quietly moving, often profound meditation on the passage of time and the peculiar way it seems to move in slow motion for children, whose awakening to the imperfections of their parents can take years. Colombian-American filmmaker Alessandra Lacorazza Samudio’s remarkable first feature-length film earned her both the Grand Jury Prize and the dramatic directing award at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. More awards are sure to come for this affecting, unforgettable film, which is one of the year’s best.
Told in four numbered vignettes that correspond to summers in the lives of a divorced father and his two daughters, the film marks time passing not just with different actresses portraying the daughters, but also with repeated scenes that alter just enough to signify changes in the characters and their relationships. In the opening scene, young Violeta (Dreya Renae Castillo) and Eva (Luciana Quinonez), flying alone from their mother’s home in California to spend the summer with their father in Las Cruces, New Mexico, are picked up at the airport by their eager, doting, waiting father, Vicente (René Pérez Joglar). By the time the girls are young adults, they are taking a taxi from the airport to visit their father, and staying elsewhere. In between these bookended scenes, we witness the girls struggling through adolescence, as they experience the joy, confusion, and disappointments that come from the dawning realization that parents are complex humans, filled with flaws as well as strengths.
The town of Las Cruces becomes almost another character, and the cinematography by Alejandro Mejía is award worthy in its own right. We can almost feel the heat of the pavement at the town pool and the cool dusk breeze. We understand why Eva and Violeta search for connection and vie for their father’s attention as they spend slow, hot days in this rural, starkly beautiful desert town.
Vicente loves his daughters, but his warmth and charm can turn quickly to anger, especially when he’s been drinking. As his daughters grow up, they test his boundaries, pushing back instead of quietly backing down. We can see how much this dynamic wears on the girls as they become young women, particularly on the headstrong Violeta, whose need for her father’s approval isn’t as strong as her sister’s.
Through all the ups and downs with their father, the two sisters–although very different–remain fiercely close, with an unbreakable, shared bond cemented by summers spent with their erratic, volatile father. Sasha Calle and Lio Mehiel, as the young adult Eva and Violeta, respectively, are both terrific, and their chemistry with Perez Joglar, who turns in a star-making performance, feels extraordinarily authentic.
Lacorazza Samudio has made one of the best movies about families and growing up since Richard Linklater’s Boyhood. Atmospheric and emotionally rich, In the Summers is both a specific character study and a universal story of the struggles and sorrows of coming of age.
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In the Summers is in theaters now, including at the Roxie in San Francisco.
