2008 film Summer Hours is really a film about adult children dealing with the legacy of their mother. It is of little interest to GLers or even AGlers except for three scenes. And yet these scenes punctuate the film very specifically to give it deeper resonance.

The film opens with a bunch of kids running through a large backyard. The smaller children are following a treasure chase set out for them by their teen cousins Sylvie ( played by ⚠️ ↗Alice de Lencquesaing ) and Pierre.

Soon we're pulled into the story of their parents and grandmother, as well as questions about what a house becomes when the children who made it what it was move out and away.

We next see Sylvie in a spot of trouble, being picked up from the police station by her father, who she sees as something of a hypocrite and busybody for prying into things he did when he was her age. Their argument serves to reveal perceived differences and real similarities.

Finally at the end of the film she and Pierre throw a houseparty in the old place. While initially it seems to betray a lack of regard for the estate, she shows a softer side ⚠️ ↗ and reveals that this was her legacy too.

The scenes with Sylvie are few in a film focussing on 40somethings and their aging parents. But her presence is a reminder of how in remaking a domicile in their own image, children bring architecture alive. And that the love/hate relationship with family legacies transcends the generation which gets to make the choices and rebounds off those who must live with those choices.

Its hardly a film designed for AGLers, but without its AG, it would be an essay without punctuation.

Dante