Mark Reviews Movies: SUMMERLAND

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Review by Mark Dujsik | July 30, 2020

The prologue of Summerland, set more than 30 years after the events of the primary story, appears to establish a lot about our main character and the outcome of what we're about see. It's 1975, and an older woman (played by Penelope Wilton) is typing away, deep in concentration, in a small cottage near the sea. Some kids interrupt her work, and after scolding them, she gets back to it.

The camera moves away from her and looks out the window. As our view returns inside the cottage, the woman is still typing, but she is younger now. The concentration is still there. Another interruption of more kids, pouring dirt and twigs into her mailbox, ensues, and the woman's scolding, in the same tone, follows.

The assumption—one that is clearly intentional on the part of writer/director Jessica Swale—that we gain from this series of shots is how little Alice Lamb, our protagonist, has changed over the course of more than three decades. As an older woman, she is alone and devoted to writing and irritated by anyone daring to invade her little space of privacy. As a younger woman, Alice, played by Gemma Arterton, is also isolated and dedicated to her work and frustrated by even a momentary betrayal of her inner sanctum. The times may change, but people, despite centuries of stories telling us otherwise, often do not.

That seems to be the case with Alice, and Swale's structuring of this tale enforces that expectation within a matter of minutes. It's a clever act of screenwriting and direction, but we don't realize just how smart it is until the film's epilogue, which brings us back from the midst of World War II and into the '70s again. That's when we realize just how much Swale has played with and ultimately shatters our expectations.

Swale's storytelling here is all about that. Here, on the surface, is a story about a woman who appears to begin and end her character arc in the same place. When the film flashes back to the 1940s, as the United Kingdom is in the grip of a war that has trespassed on its own inner sanctum, we think we know what will happen. We don't know the specifics, of course, but there's a distinct feeling that whatever happens to Alice will only cement the woman she is now, in order that she will remain the same woman over 30 years later. None of it, given the circumstances, can be good.

Thus, with that notion in mind, we watch as the younger Alice receives an unexpected visitor. He's a boy named Frank (Lucas Bond), who has been evacuated from London because of Germany's constant bombing runs on the city. His father is currently a pilot, serving in the air force, and his mother has taken a job within the government.

The kid has nowhere else to go, and for reasons that Alice cannot fathom or particularly care about, Frank has landed on her doorstep. She wants him gone as quickly as possible, so that she can continue her writing about folklore unhindered. When the conversation turns to Alice's study of the pagan afterlife, it seems almost too convenient not to consider it foreshadowing.

What, really, does one anticipate from the story, though? It's clear that Alice, who becomes accustomed to the boy as the days go by and his genuine curiosity about her work increases, and Frank, who doesn't care about all the rumors in this small town about his ward being a witch or a spy for the Germans, will form a bond.

It is quite lovely, though, because we watch and truly believe that Alice, who is—as we learn—capable of and in want of real human connection, would empathize with this boy—an outsider, a curious mind, a child whose own capacity for empathy is rather startling when Alice begins to talk about her past. The connection between Arterton, who specifies Alice's almost misanthropic attitude as a means of protecting herself from pain, and Bond only solidifies how affecting this unlikely surrogate mother-child relationship becomes.

The other major plot point and foundation of Alice's character arrives through flashbacks to the 1920s, when an even younger Alice made a deep connection with Vera (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), a socialite who desperately wants a family of her own. Alice, whose father has died a few years before meeting Vera, wants that, too—or as much as possible, considering her attraction to women, especially Vera, and the times in which they are living.

All things considered, we know how the story of the flashbacks will end, just as we think we know how the war-time story will result in Alice's apparent situation in the 1970s. Swale's structuring does get a bit in the way here, particularly in making the relationship between Alice and Vera really uncover the emotional depths that are required for the whole of this story to resonate. The layers of flashbacks don't help. It's mainly, though, that Swale has to keep that romantic relationship at a certain distance, lest the audience start to think that it's anything more than a way to establish a reason for Alice's loneliness, lack of trust, and fear of making a connection of any kind with another person.

No more can be said at this point, except to say that Swale sets us up for a story of love that will inevitability lead to loss. Summerland does provide that, but it's not the end. Indeed, the suspected, seemingly inevitable ending is nothing of the sort. We appreciate both the simple optimism of it and Swale's craft in getting us there.

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