PUTTING HIS flashy, vapid thrillers (Dreamlover, Boarding Gate) behind him, writer-director Olivier Assayas returns to form and to the classically structured intimate drama that is his forte in Summer Hours. It begins at a bucolic country house in a village north of Paris when three generations of a family gather for the 75th birthday party of widowed painter Hélène (Edith Scob), writes Michael Dwyer.
Acutely conscious of her own mortality, Hélène is anxious about the fate of her house full of paintings, art-nouveau furniture and objets d'art after she dies. She expresses her preference to have everything preserved as a private collection in a museum. After that moving extended sequence, her family do not meet again until her funeral, and the delicate negotiations over the estate begin.
The eldest of her three adult offspring, Frédéric (Charles Berling), a Paris-based economics lecturer, wants to respect Hélène's wishes. His sister Adrienne (Juliette Binoche) is a porcelain designer who lives in New York with her American lover (Kyle Eastwood, son of Clint). Their brother Jérémie (Jérémie Rénier) works for a sportswear manufacturer and is about to move indefinitely to Beijing with his wife and children.
Adrienne and Jérémie both want to sell off their mother's collection, but the family lawyer points out the complicated tax implications and recommends donating the collection to the state through the Musée d'Orsay in Paris (which commissionedthe film and figures prominently at one point in the drama).
The melancholy mood established in the opening sequence is sustained as Assayas reflects on the changing values of different generations, on the significance of home in the age of globalisation, and on the place of art in our lives.
The family tensions and recriminations triggered in the storyline are treated with understatement as the siblings strive to remain civilised and to avoid severing their close bonds. That is subtly expressed in a particularly effective scene when the two brothers talk in a cafe.
The narrative broadens to encompass speculation on Hélène's relationship with her uncle, a distinguished painter, and to address Frédéric's own problems as a parent.
This thoughtful, wistful movie features particularly fine performances from Berling and Rénier as the brothers, Isabelle Sadoyan as the family's devoted longtime housekeeper, and Scob, whose presence as Hélène lingers over the proceedings long after her character has passed away.
