“In the Summers” - Film Review
In the Summers is available to own on Blu-Ray, DVD, and VOD.
The summertime offers a sense of freedom that can’t be found during the other months of the year. For kids, it’s a three-month-long escape from the tortures of school. When the days stretch long, the popsicle juice runs down your arm, and no real responsibilities weigh you down. The entirety of In the Summers takes place during these magical months, but over the course of many years, to paint a fragmented-yet-whole picture of a splintered family dynamic that only exists during the summer months.
In the Summers is split into four chapters, each chronicling one of the summers Violeta (Dreya Castillo, Kimaya Thais, & Lio Mehiel) and Eva (Luciana Elisa Quinonez, Allison Salinas, & Sasha Calle) spent with their father, Vicente (Residente). During the rest of the months, Violeta and Eva live with their mother in California, but every summer, like clockwork, the girls arrive in Las Cruces, New Mexico, where Vicente lives. The film sees Violeta and Eva grow from elementary school age to fully-formed adults. Each summer, the relationship among the three of them changes to become more and more fragmented.
Courtesy of Music Box Films.
Residente is one of two actors present in every chapter of the film. The other constant in the lives of Violeta and Eva, and arguably a more consistent presence than Vicente, is Carmen (Emma Ramos). She runs the local bar where Vicente spends many nights drinking to oblivion and meets the girls where they are. She won’t overstep her boundaries, but she will make sure they get home safely when Vicente has had too much to drink. Despite Residente and Ramos being the only actors in every chapter, the viewer sees how much they’ve changed, in subtle and extreme ways, without the physical transformations seen in the daughters. Vicente and Carmen are two sides of the same coin. Neither necessarily wants to be a full-time caretaker, but when push comes to shove, one steps up and the other doesn’t.
In the Summers is the magnificent sort of film that appears on paper to be simple, but is in fact a series of intricate layers that amounts to something far greater than its small-scale sensibilities may seem capable of creating. The movie has moments of utter childlike charm and awe before swinging in the opposite direction to realities far beyond what these young girls should face. We see the listless feeling of a childhood summer without technology, and that a vacation isn’t more than a series of weird activities siblings cook up together. We also see when that feeling stops being enough. When kids crave more than pizza every night, amusement parks all day, and spontaneous adventures any time. There comes a summer when all that stops being enough to build a relationship on and they crave something deeper.
Courtesy of Music Box Films.
A relationship is a two-way street, and In the Summers shows how the fragile father-daughter dynamic only succeeds if both parties are willing to work toward the same goal. Their first summer together wasn’t perfect. The girls were hesitant to trust Vicente, but he was present. He bought gifts, showed up early, and planned excursions. Every summer after that, however, his drive to connect with them is lost. It grows increasingly more difficult to connect with kids when they're older and they’re not becoming the person you wanted or expected them to be. Eva isn’t smart in the way that Vicente prefers, and Violeta knows that her father won’t respect her newfound queerness. The unfortunate reality of the summers is that it’s not just the relationship between the daughters and their father that will be irrevocably damaged. The deep bond between Violeta and Eva eventually deteriorates as well.
In the Summers is an exquisite, semi-autobiographical debut film from writer/director Alessandra Lacorazza Samudio. Its deceptive simplicity is wholly elevated by the naturalistic performances of the actors. While the audience never gets the complete picture of the relationships among these family members, there’s more than enough information to confidently connect the dots. In the Summers is as miraculous as the hazy days of nothingness that amount to everything.
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