The Swedish-speaking Finnish artist Tove Jansson is best known in the United States as the creator of the Moomins, but she was also a noted painter, illustrator, and author as well as a role model for living the life that’s right for you, no matter what the legal system of your country thinks of it. Outside of the Moomins, her most popular fictional works is probably The Summer Book (Sommarboken), which is both simple and profound and a book I have returned to again and again. All of which is to say that I’ve been eagerly awaiting the film adaptation directed by Charlie McDowell with a screenplay by Robert Jones.
When we first meet 6-year-old Sophia (newcomer Emily Matthews), her grandmother (Glenn Close) and her father (Anders Danielsen Lie), they’re en route to their summer home, a cabin on an island on the Gulf of Finland. For the record, lots of Nordic people spend their summers this way, in fairly primitive cabins on islands sufficiently remote that you can regain your feeling for the natural world after spending most of the year living a modern life and working at a modern job. In fact, it’s exactly what Tove Jansson and her (female) partner, artist Tuulikki Pietilä, did for about five months of every year; the rest of the time they lived and worked in Helsinki.
Something is hanging over this trio, and we find out what in the opening minutes: Sophia’s mother has recently died and her father is lost in mourning for her, leaving Sophia to fear that he no longer loves her. It’s also clear to us, although not to Sophia, that grandmother may not have many summers left; right now, however, she’s Sophia’s best buddy and guiding spirit. The characters are modeled on Jansson’s niece Sophia Jansson and her mother Signe Hammarsten-Jansson, a formidable woman with a successful artistic career artist at a time when the field was dominated by men, and one of the founders of the Girl Scout movement in Finland. Jansson was very close to her mother and her death in 1970 (two years before publication of The Summer Book) marked a shift in Jansson’s work toward darker, more adult fare.
Publicity for The Summer Book has emphasized the presence of Glenn Close, which is understandable considering she’s a huge star, but it’s Emily Matthews’ performance that makes the film work. That she is the film’s central character is underlined by the fact that she has a name, while Father and Grandmother are simply identified by their relation to her. Not a lot happens, plot-wise, in this film—instead it’s mainly about the small things that happen as a child learns about life, the joys of the natural world, and how people work through their feelings and find a way to carry on.
The Summer Book is beautifully shot on 16 mm by cinematographer Sturla Brandth Grøvlen, and both the island itself and the cabin where the three main characters spend much of their time is a convincing stand-in for Jansson’s summer home on Klovharu island. The pace is unhurried, matching the feel of reading the novel The Summer Book, but the film feels talkier and more heavy-handed, as if it feels the need to deliver life lessons directly to the audience rather than letting them emerge. The soundtrack by Hania Rani is something of a mismatch, often often too heavy-handed for such a slender narrative, and in the film’s opening moments I was afraid it was going to break out in a version of Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring.
These criticisms should be taken with the understanding that no rendition of a beloved book is going to satisfy everyone. If I didn’t know the original, I’d probably be OK with this film as it is and wouldn’t be bothered about how a Nordic classic has been translated for American audiences. The Summer Book is still worth seeing, and also worth reading, but my advice is to see the movie, then read the book: you’ll be better able to enjoy both that way. | Sarah Boslaugh
The Summer Book is available for rental or purchase from on a variety of streaming services including AppleTV, Google Play, and Fandango at Home.
