Summer Hours

Plot Summary

French master Olivier Assays' SUMMER HOURS confronts three 40-ish siblings with the sudden death of their mother, heiress to her uncle's exceptional 19th century art collection. Adrienne (Juliette Binoche), a successful New York designer, Frederic (Charles Berling), a professor in Paris, and Jeremie (Jeremie Renier), a businessman in China, confront the end of childhood, their shared memories, and unique vision of the future. "Assayas, shooting the film with relaxed, flowing camera movements, gives his love not to beautiful objects but to the disorderly life out of which art is made" –Denby, NEW YORKER. "I'm convinced that places have souls," Assayas has said about SUMMER HOURS. "The house materializes the link between the characters and, in a way, what gets lost among them is this link. When it's gone, everything that united the characters comes undone, disappears, becomes a void. The house is at the heart of the film, as a material place and one invested in the flux of identity." From IFC Films.