brief moderate threat
2020 ( UK ) ( Drama, Romance, War )
DIRECTOR: Jessica Swale
STARRING: Gemma Arterton, Tom Courtenay, Lucas Bond
Alice (Gemma Arterton) is a reclusive writer, resigned to a solitary life on the seaside cliffs of Southern England while World War II rages across the channel. Consumed by her work, but also profoundly lonely, she is haunted by a love affair from her past. When she opens her front door one day to find she’s to adopt a young London evacuee named Frank (Lucas Bond), she’s not best pleased. It’s not long however, before Frank’s innocence and curiosity awaken Alice’s deeply buried emotions. the two realize they have more in common in their pasts than Alice had assumed. Summerland is an intensely emotional story of love’s endurance in trying times
On her big screen directorial debut playwright Jessica Swale handles the changes of tone with absolute assurance, mixing aching melancholy with the giddy first flush of romance and heart-racing melodrama to powerful effect.
(1hr 39min)