Summerland

 

Summerland 2020

• Director: Jessica Swale
• Based on the book: no
• Cast: Gemma Arterton, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Lucas Bond, Penelope Wilton, Tom Courtney, Dixie Egerickx, Siân Phillips, Amanda Root
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Gemma Arterton – Their Finest, The Girl with All the Gifts, 100 Streets, A Song for Marion, Byzantium, Tamara Drewe, Kick Ass Girls 2, The Boat that Rocked, Quantum of Solace, Lost in Austen
• Gugu Mbatha-Raw – The Cloverfield Paradox, Beauty and the Beast, Jupiter Ascending, Belle, Lost in Austen, Bonekickers, Doctor Who
• Penelope Wilton – Downton Abbey, The Guernsey Literary Potato Peel Pie Society, BFG, Hotel Marigold 1&2, Belle, South Riding, Doctor Who, Pride and Prejudice, Calendar Girls, Shaun of the Dead, Cry Freedom, King Lear, Othello
• Tom Courtney – The Guernsey Literary Potato Peel Pie Society, Unforgotten, Quartet, The Golden Compass, Flood, Whatever Happened to Harold Smith, The Dresser, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Doctor Zhivago, The Loneliness of a Long-Distance Runner.
• Dixie Egerickx -The Secret Garden
• Siân Phillips – C B Strike, Dune, I Claudius, Shoulder to Shoulder
• Amanda Root – Unforgotten, Sherlock, Their Finest, Rose and Maloney, Little Britain, Daniel Deronda, Whatever Happened to Harold Smith, The Man Who Cried
• Why? The cast.
• Seen: 5 September August 2023      

             Alice Lamb (Arterton and Wilton) researches, analyses and writes about folklore. She lives alone and is furious with everybody. The villagers, especially the children, call her witch and Nazi, and torment her.

       Into this unhappy atmosphere comes young Frank (Bond), an evacuee from the London Blitz. Alice is as unwelcoming as she can possibly be, and he is relentlessly cheerful.

       Of course, she melts, especially when he shows interest in her work.

       Flashbacks show the reason for her anger – an unhappy love affair with Vera (Mbatha-Raw).

       It is sentimental and predictable, until the twist, which is so unlikely that only superior actors like Arterton and the others could pull it off. Beautiful Kent also lifts it and even the love story works quite nicely. 

3 ½ * of 5

  

 

 

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