Glenn Close in a tender family drama

A nice intergenerational moment towards the end of Charlie McDowell The book of the summer captures the restorative magic of its atmospheric setting on a small island in the Gulf of Finland.

Glenn Close, who plays a grandmother near the end of her life, recognizes that once-vivid memories are slipping away from her when she can no longer remember the feeling of sleeping in a tent under the stars as a girl. Her 9-year-old granddaughter describes the experience to her, bringing a smile to the old woman's face: “I remember… It's like the whole island shrinks around you until you and she are like a raft in the sea.”

Adapted by Robert Jones from the novel by Tove Jansson, the beloved Finnish writer and illustrator of the ever-popular Moomin books and comics: McDowell's film version stays faithful to the source material by equally sharing its focus between its characters and the elemental forces that surround them. You can feel the bitter cold of the Baltic Sea waters lapping the shore; the soft caress of the sun in a place where it is always warm; the violence of a storm that breaks out without warning.

Aside from the evocative sense of place, the film is subdued and gentle to a fault. The sparse narrative often seems to drift rather than move forward with purpose, at times threatening to be blown away by the winds that pound the island. But on the bright side, the unhurried pace – let's call it island time – allows the attention to detail to shine through. The cumulative experience is affecting in a minor key, an appealing throwback to the old-fashioned family dramas of a more innocent era.

Although the book is fictional, it is based on the many summers Jansson spent on the rocky islet of Klovharu with her niece, in a modest cottage the author built with her brother in 1964. Jansson, whose early life was were depicted in the 2020 Finnish biographical drama Tovehe spent five months a year for three decades on the island with his life partner, who shot the 8mm home movies seen in that film's epilogue and in the credits here.

The deep roots of the writer's emotional and physical connection to the place provide the foundation for the short story. These qualities are fully manifested in Close's finely etched characterization. The unnamed grandmother is a robust woman, quite content to live with minimal comforts in a rustic, unheated house even as her health worsens. He passes that love of the island — its rocks, mosses and pine forest patches — to his niece Sophia (brilliant newcomer Emily Matthews) in intimate exchanges throughout.

The two have arrived on a remote island with Sophia's taciturn father (Anders Danielsen Lie) following a shocking loss that remains unspoken for much of the film. But, starting from the desolate expression on his face as he picks up a sun hat forgotten the previous summer, it becomes clear that his wife's death has led him to withdraw into himself, retreating into his work as an illustrator. Sophia interprets her father's silence as a lack of love towards her after her mother's death, and her grandmother intercedes as a mediator only in the most discreet ways.

Despite the decision to adapt the source material into English, the family feels decidedly Nordic. The little girl is petulant and sometimes bored, plays cards and listens to her grandmother's old records. But Close gives her character a reassuring stillness and a blissful smile, which generally have a calming influence on Sophia. Even as she limps with difficulty over rocks, using a gnarled piece of wood as a walking stick, the old woman's demeanor remains infectiously pleasant.

Only once does he address Sophia's father harshly, when he bitterly comments on a boatman's reluctance to come to the house while he was delivering fireworks for the midsummer celebration: “The stench of pain keeps him away.” . “Or self-pity,” his mother replies.

That feeling seems completely foreign to her. When Sophia asks her, with the frankness of young people, when her grandmother will die, she replies: “It doesn't matter. Soon.” Her serene acceptance of that inevitability also extends to the fact that she peels the covers off her bed at night and folds her hands over her chest, seemingly more curious than fearful of what the inside of a coffin might be like.

Her grandmother's creeping infirmity fails to stop her excursions with Sophia. They go by boat to another part of the island, where the new arrivals have built a large, modern house that blends intrusively into the otherwise pristine landscape. The old woman's amusing disapproval subsides slightly when the owners reveal themselves to be genuinely friendly.

Another day they travel further away, to an abandoned lighthouse. Sophia's prayer for something exciting to happen: “Like a storm. Nothing.” – turns out to be fatal. It brings with it the only highly dramatic narrative sequence, a cathartic upheaval that allows the family to heal.

The only glaring misstep in Jones' screenplay is seeing the father lash out at the sky when caught in a storm in a rowboat: “Is that all you've got? Right?” The moment feels false and exaggerated in a film that is otherwise a model of restraint.

Danielsen Lie (so memorable in The worst person in the world) is interpreted with such a recessive character that even his pain is perceived as distant. While his display of renewed warmth towards Sophia has been a long time coming, while a little abrupt, it is still touching. There is a nice life cycle continuum in the way the repaired bond frees the grandmother to let go.

One might argue that McDowell prepares us for the old woman's death so assiduously that nearly every missing scene in the film's second half seems to prepare for her exit. But when the end comes for her, it's truly moving: a peaceful surrender in which her heartbeat stops as she literally returns to nature. (This cannot be considered a spoiler since there is no version of this film in which the grandmother lives.)

Although the time period is never specified, the set, costumes, and props all suggest the period in which the 1972 novel was written. There are lots of heavy knitwear and no cell phones or computers; even the luxury home of newcomers to the island could pass for a boxy modernist construction from half a century ago.

The set that matters most is the timeless island itself. A rough rock formation that appears to have been ejected from a volcano millions of years earlier, it is surrounded by ice floes that melt away only for those few precious summer months. Steering clear of postcard territory, cinematographer Sturla Brandth Grovlen captures picturesque nighttime sunsets, soft cloud formations, rippling waters and tranquil glades – not to mention breathtaking light – with a beauty that makes you believe in the powers healing of the place.

The setting could hardly be more different from McDowell's latest feature, the claustrophobic hostage thriller Manna. Nor could the predominantly calm tone.

Polish pianist Hania Rani's sparkling score recalls the melancholy that lurks just beneath the surface of the characters, accompanied by the ever-present sounds of nature: waves, wind, seabirds. In this retelling, The book of the summer it's a slim volume, but its unpretentious pleasures gain substance.