Summer Hours
IFC Films | Release Date: May 15, 2009 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
86
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 31 Critic Reviews
Positive:
30
Mixed:
1
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
Hats off to Olivier Assayas's plain yet hauntingly beautiful Summer Hours, a true--albeit nonsecular--meditation on art and eternal life. Read full review
100
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
Brims with life and loveliness even as it meditates on the loss of childhood. Read full review
100
The New York TimesA.O. Scott
In spite of its modest scale, tactful manner and potentially dowdy subject matter, is packed nearly to bursting with rich meaning and deep implication. Read full review
100
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
It all comes together as formidably detailed and easy-breathing craftsmanship. Read full review
100
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
Extraordinary 2008 French drama. Read full review
100
Washington PostDan Kois
Assayas's actors are so fascinating that I wished at times he had given the house less screen time and let his performers explore their characters more freely. Read full review
100
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Stephen Cole
It is filmmaker Assayas who is the star here. France's most important contemporary director has created a work of almost magisterial calm. Read full review
100
Time OutJoshua Rothkopf
As brightly alive a movie as the season will offer. Read full review
91
Portland OregonianMarc Mohan
A keenly observed, typically high-quality family drama of the sort only the French seem capable of making anymore. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
French films traditionally take France and its eternal appeal for granted. Summer Hours is the rare film that worries about that, worries about the future, and that proves to be invaluable. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
Summer Hours is a lovely rumination on the meaning of things, but one that remains rooted in its human subjects rather than the inanimate objects that are more easily graspable. Read full review
89
Paste MagazineRobert Davis
It’s a meditation on how objects carry history, how they reflect our decaying bones, and how they sometimes outlive us. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter Travers
Writer-director Olivier Assayas crafts a near perfect blend of humor and heartbreak, a lyrical masterwork that measures loss in terms practical and evanescent. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
Quietly and keenly observed, Summer Hours nods to Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard" (a country estate, a family reunion, an impending sale). Assayas displays a lucid sense of how personal history and family identity are inextricably linked to a physical place - here, to a house that is still busy accumulating its memories. Read full review
88
Slant MagazineAkiva Gottlieb
It’s a testament to Assayas’s empathy that he is able to build the entirety of his drama in the distance between his principals’ forgivable self-interest and their quiet kindness. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubNoel Murray
Its final scene is almost overpoweringly tender and beautiful, offering a hopeful rejoinder to all the prior scenes of family members shedding their shared legacy. Read full review
83
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
Assayas conveys with great understatement an entire constellation of emotions in Summer Hours. I wouldn't have minded a little bit of overstatement. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterRay Bennett
Assayas makes the point that objects of fascination and affection to one generation may be far less so to the next. And he observes the role that people-friendly museums can play in keeping a nation's treasures safe with pleasing subtlety. Read full review
80
VarietyDerek Elley
A family ensembler of utter simplicity, Oliver Assayas' Summer Hours is a salutory (and belated) reminder that, as with his earlier Cold Water and Late August, Early September, some of this writer-director's best work comes in modest packages. Read full review
80
SalonStephanie Zacharek
The magic of Summer Hours is that even in its elusiveness, it gives us something to hang onto. Read full review
80
New York Daily NewsElizabeth Weitzman
Assayas and his cast hit so many perfect notes, you'll swear you've seen these characters and heard these conversations before - not in Chekhov's thematically similar "Cherry Orchard," which was an obvious influence, but in your own life. Read full review
80
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
Much of Summer Hours, which was shot by the excellent Eric Gautier, feels like a Chekhov play and resonates like a Schubert quartet; it’s a work of singular loveliness. Read full review
80
EmpireDavid Parkinson
Deftly played and beautifully photographed, this may lack depth, but its observations on human transience are deeply moving. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
Summer Hours attracted two of France's acting luminaries, and their presence elevates the material. Charles Berling has the central role; the movie is largely told from his perspective. Juliette Binoche, with blonde hair, has a secondary part. Read full review
75
USA TodayClaudia Puig
Each character is decent and likable, as well as complex. The four main portrayals are outstanding -- so natural and believable that you are drawn into their story immediately. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
The actors all find the correct notes. It is a French film, and so they are allowed to be adult and intelligent. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
The movie unfolds like something out of E.M. Forster, but Assayas isn't all that interested in family dynamics. Instead, he's made a chronicle of how the children will handle the sale of the house and its treasures. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
Audiences watch Summer Hours and then, a week later, remember it as though they've lived it. Read full review
70
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
Too chatty to be ascetic, Summer Hours is nevertheless almost Ozu-like in its evocation of a parent's death and the dissolving bond between the surviving children. It's also an essay on the nature of sentimental and real value--as well as the need to protect French culture in a homogenizing world. Read full review
70
The New YorkerDavid Denby
In the end, 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. Read full review
50
New York PostKyle Smith
Even for a French drama, Summer Hours is so slow as to be practically still. Read full review
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