IN THE SUMMERS - Mark Reviews Movies

In the Summers, Music Box Films

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Review by Mark Dujsik | September 19, 2024

Children can see more than most adults are willing to admit, and it teaches them things about what to say, how to act, and who to be. Kids also hold their parents, not to a high standard, but simply as the standard of such matters, and when they're young, mistakes or bad choices or even hurtful actions aren't things to be forgiven, because children don't see it that way. A parent is a parent, and parents do what's best, whether or not that's the reality.

In the Summers follows a father and his two daughters over the course of several lengthy stays with the man, when the kids are young, teenagers, and young adults. There's no set interval of time between the visits we see, and surely, there are missing ones here, because the children age suddenly with almost every new chapter of writer/director Alessandra Lacoraaza's debut feature. Then again, the father has his own life, which changes quite a lot as the years progress, and so, too, do the kids, who have school and friendships and obligations with other family members.

All of that is unseen and barely referenced here, because this is the father's time. At first, nothing else really matters to the daughters during these summer months. One of the tragedies of this insightful and mournful story is that Vincente (René "Residente" Pérez Joglar), the father, doesn't comprehend or even realize just how important he is to his two girls until it's too late for him to do anything about how much else he missed.

Pérez is the one constant of this film's central cast, and the rapper, making what is essentially his acting debut, infuses Vincente with layers of hidden ache, resentment, and ultimate regret beneath the outward charm of the character's early scenes. When we first see him, Vincente is on his own, waiting in the car outside a small airport in Las Cruces, New Mexico, where he now lives a single life in the home his mother left him as an inheritance. There's little we gather about him, except that he's nervous and excited. Indeed, his hand is shaking, which seems like a symptom of his enthusiasm for seeing his two daughters, after being granted solo visitation rights for the kids' time off school.

The shake doesn't go away, though, after the arrival of young Violeta (Dreya Castillo) and younger sister Eva (Luciana Elisa Quiñonez), who are thrilled to see their father for the first time in a bit and at the prospect of having entire months with him. At his best, he's the kind of father who speaks plainly with his kids, because he knows they're smart, and plans adventures, like leaving in the middle of the night to get the best view of the stars in the desert. He loves his kids, which is a given, but Vincente respects them, which isn't always as common.

There is another side to the man, though, and it does have to do his shaking hands. One might suspect he's ill, and in a way, he is. One of the early outings with his daughters is to a local tavern, where his childhood friend Carmen (Emma Ramos) tends bar, so that he can teach the girls how to play pool. He orders a beer and, then, a whole pitcher of it, and soon enough, the trembling stops.

We can see what's happening with Vincente, get an idea of why he's divorced from the girls' mother and had to fight for visitation, and understand that there's somehow much more and less to him than what first appears. He is an alcoholic, who must have stopped drinking to gain those visitation rights and, with his kids' presence secured, now falls back into addiction. The girls don't notice, because they're children. As certain events unfold and Vincente's life changes and the daughters grow up, they do start to notice and, more importantly, to learn from their father's example—whether they want to or not.

The whole film, in its quiet and observant way, is a tragedy, beyond Vincente, who does evolve as a character. We're not witnesses to the process of those changes, of course, because his daughters aren't. One summer, they're just happy to be with their father. The next, the father's drinking has become habitual, while his attitude is harsher and his choices—especially one involving a drive home from the bar—are more dangerous.

By the time Violeta and Eva are teenagers or thereabouts (played, respectively, by Kimaya Thais Limon and Allison Salinas), Vincente can become angry, at something as simple as Eva not playing pool well, or filled with regret, such as whenever the subject of his career ambitions emerges. Another late-night drive results in one of the daughters not showing up for the next visit.

The children undergo their own changes, beyond aging from kids to young adults, when Violeta is played by Lio Mehiel and Eva by Sasha Calle. Violeta's awakening sexuality is guided by Carmen, who becomes a mentor of sorts between visits, and her crush on a girl who's one of Vincente's tutoring pupils. Violeta is as intelligent as Vincente—perhaps more so—but has more opportunity than him. Meanwhile, Eva becomes isolated, starts sneaking drinks of her father's left-behind beers, and picks up more of his habits, even as Vincente's new responsibilities at home result in an unseen awakening for him.

These characters and relationships are shrewdly depicted and adroitly examined here, even and especially within the seeming limitations of the time-jumping structure of Lacorazza's narrative. In fact, the compressed and spread-out nature of this story makes us keenly aware of just how much we are missing about these characters and their lives, just as Vincente misses so much of his daughters' lives and vice versa. That sense only amplifies the devastation of In the Summers, as a father and his children, who want nothing else than to be together, slowly drift apart over the course of time, because of choices and things outside of their control, and, most heartbreaking of all, because that's what the parent taught his children—whether he wanted to or not.

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