Tedfoldol everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Roy Hart If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

Ezmae Chang This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

museumofdave This sumptuously photographed, leisurely film about different kinds of family legacy is intelligent and thought-provoking. The film deals with several generations and their attitudes towards the the nature of art, of business and of life itself; in its own way it asks several age-old questions--What does our life mean? At our death, what do we leave behind? How does our idea of culture continue when globalization undermines a sense of local tradition? Loaded with convincing performers, taking its time to examine siblings in conflict, and humane in approach, this is the kind of film that sadly seldom is made in our own country--this week, folks are flocking to The Avengers, a film essentially made for fifteen year old boys who like to see epic versions of violent video games--any other week it's much the same; I suppose these films fill the corporate coffers, but they offer any real insight into our lives? I think Summer Hours does just that.

sergepesic This beautiful, quiet and restrained French movie, flawlessly exposes the broken world we live in. Antiques, art, pieces of handcrafted stylish furniture, houses, land, all the material goods that defined the civilized world through centuries are becoming expendable. The new world order has no time nor place for sentimental values.Memories are waste of time, home we grew up in, just a real estate of different value, even family stretched across the globe, vanishes in this rat race called modern living. The affluent and self-absorbed siblings in "Summer Hours", fully embrace the shallow and ,simply unimportant, money grabbing planet we live on.

ThurstonHunger This film has a soft, subtle tone set forth by the matriarch of the family, wonderfully cast as and gracefully played by Edith Scob. If I tick off some of the plot points, the film seems like it could be one mustering a lot of blustering emotion, but it never really does.Thus I am actually a bit taken aback by the notions that this is a film of a dysfunctional family. Sure the family is fragmented, as is any family as its members not only grow up, but necessarily grow apart. If anything, I think this film is gentle in addressing that. I actually thought the family was strikingly functional, at least by cinematic standards.Anyways, here come the spoilers, I'd certainly recommend watching this film, ideally before reading any further...In the film we have1) the death of said matriarch2) an ensuing disagreement on what to do with the inheritance3) notions of a scandalous affair involving the matriarch and her famous artist uncle4) the matriarch's granddaughter gets arrested for shoplifting and possessionIn particular, #2 above is propped up as a potential explosive point, but the two brothers and one sister seem to reconcile their disagreements with extreme civility, and indeed despite the elder son's executor intentions, the family ends up choosing what the mother had wisely selected. Surely a sobering decision for her, and I think the crux of the film.A lot of the above tensions are actually resolved off screen, again I think putting the focus off any sort of familial fireworks.So while we may see the wild, farewell-to-the-estate party by the granddaughter and her cohorts as oblivious to the treasures that were once housed there, there is a moment out in the tall grass, where the granddaughter recollects her ancestor's memories, and a subtle shade of the love that touched a young Helene was more memorable than any future museum piece she may have touched. Helene passed that moment somehow through to her granddaughter, framed not in a canvas, or even in the light as it struck the model of the original picture, but in sensation of that specific moment.Are such moments what are hopes to capture, if not inspire?In contrast, the desk that leaves the estate for the museum is then shown partially occluded on screen and largely ignored by the throngs that press past it. Look, I love museums myself, but even more so I love the people I attend them with. Watch this film with one of those people (my wife also enjoyed this film, subtitles and all!)

Roland E. Zwick In the early scenes of "Summer Hours," a 75-year-old French widow (Edith Scob), sensing that the end of her life is at hand, gathers her three adult children and their respective families together at their bucolic ancestral home to celebrate what she believes may be her final birthday. Though a proud mother and a dutiful wife, Helene Bertier has really lived her whole life dedicated to preserving the work and the memory of her uncle, a famous, well-respected painter (there are indications that there may have been more to their relationship than what was apparent on the surface). Two of her three children have scattered to the far-flung corners of the globe - Adrienne (Juliette Binoche) to New York City and Jeremie (Jeremie Renier) to China - while the oldest, Frederic (Charles Berling), alone of the three, remains in France. When the day of her passing finally arrives, the three siblings are faced with the universal dilemma of clinging to the past by holding onto the family estate with all the memories it contains or of selling it off and moving on with their lives."Summer Hours" is a beautifully realized film that captures the truths of familial relationships in subtle and knowing terms. The film has an unforced, spontaneous feel to it, due in large part to the lack of contrived plotting, the lifelike dialogue, the understated performances and the spontaneous, naturalistic style of film-making director Olivier Assayas has employed in service of the material. Though very little "happens" in the conventional narrative sense of the term, the film is never static because Assayas has made the camera an intimate though unobtrusive observer of the scene. We feel as if we are eavesdropping on these people, while, at the same time, becoming deeply involved with their lives and story. Even the conflicts that inevitably arise among the siblings are executed with amazing restraint and precision, completely devoid of the kind of hyperbole and histrionics that seem to blight so many "family dramas."The movie captures the sad reality that sometimes when a person's life is over, all that's left behind to commemorate that life is an assortment of "things," things that come to have less and less value to each succeeding generation as the personal meanings and memories associated with them recede with time. Yet, in the final scene there is a brief but poignant hint that there is still a continuity that runs through the generations, binding them together in shared experience, no matter how tenuous that connection may appear to the casual observer.Superb performances and artful direction make "Summer Hours" a treat in any season.