The Summer Book

Name: The Summer Book
Genre: Drama
Released: September 19, 2025
Duration: 90 min
Rating: 62

2025

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Generally favorable reviews based on 10 Critic Reviews

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Movie Details & Credits

Music Box Films | Release Date: September 19, 2025 | Not Rated

Summary: A young girl and her grandmother spend a summer on a small, uninhabited island in the Gulf of Finland.

Genre(s): Drama

Rating: Not Rated

Runtime: 90 min

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Critic Reviews

RogerEbert.com Nell Minow

Sep 19, 2025

The Summer Book is a haiku of a movie, conveying profound thoughts about time, memory, loss, and nature through a simplified, meditative, cinematic language of exquisite images and gentle music. Read full review

Benjamin Franz

Dec 18, 2025

The Summer Book is a wholesome meditation on the life cycle. Read full review

Lisa Kennedy

Sep 18, 2025

Scanning the elder woman’s weathered visage and the grandchild’s open face as well as giving the island’s rocky, forested, mossy and watery environs their many close-ups, The Summer Book offers a loving portrait of budding and fading. Read full review

IndieWire Ritesh Mehta

Oct 29, 2024

The film just lacks in, you know, tension, danger, build, and stakes, the hallmarks of dramatic narrative. It’s almost as though the word “mellifluous,” pertaining to Hania Rani’s score, was coined for this film. Read full review

Fionnuala Halligan

Aug 30, 2025

Although there’s nothing about Charlie McDowell’s interpretation that doesn’t aim for similar excellence, the very act of embodying the book lessens its magic. Read full review

Guy Lodge

Aug 30, 2025

Charlie McDowell makes an equally respectful and respectable stab at the task, capturing some of the wistful, soft-sun warmth of Jansson’s writing — though not quite matching its unassuming poetic depths. Read full review

The Times Kevin Maher

Aug 30, 2025

The earnestness slowly becomes suffocating, and Grandmother’s endless lessons grating. Yes, nature is the ultimate healer. And? Read full review

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