Summer Hours is a mournful exploration of how material possessions can provide a source of connection and contempt between family members.

The second film to be commissioned by the Musee d’Orsay (a museum in Paris, France which is featured heavily in the film), Summer Hours opens with a family gathering on a huge estate, owned by elderly patriarch Helene (Edith Scob).

The gathering consists of Helene; her three children Adrienne (Juliette Binoche); Frederic (Charles Berling); and Jeremie (Jeremie Renier), and their spouses and children, who have come together from afar to celebrate Helene’s 75th birthday.

Their separation from one another is strictly professional, a stunning example of globalisation at its finest. Adrienne works in New York City as a designer; Jeremie runs a sneaker factory in China; while Frederic is a semi-famous economist in Paris.  

Although Helene constantly reminds them of it, her children steadfastly skirt the issue as to what should happen when she passes away. This is understandable, since the death of a loving parent is hard to swallow. But their derision is mostly due to the fact that losing Helene would mean that they would be responsible for her estate.

Situated on a plush piece of land which one could get lost in for hours, Helene’s house is filled to the brim with priceless artifacts, all of which she wants to either sell or give away to the d’Orsay. It is something that most of us would dream of owning. Yet to Adrienne and Jeremie, it is a burden which would take them away from their comfortable lives in different parts of the globe.  

Frederic is adamant: he believes that they should keep the house and its array of trinkets, and pass it along to their children. But when the inevitable –Helene’s death – happens, selling is the only viable option. Appraisers and potential buyers enter the scene like vultures, picking away at the last possessions of a family legacy.

Throughout it all, a sense of loss permeates. Writer/director Olivier Assayas wonderfully captures the link that material possessions can provide. In this particular instance, it is high class art situated in a big old rustic house which evoked memories of childhood; and adolescence; and family gatherings. For someone else it could be an old couch in the corner of the living room; or a stack of comic books gathering dust on top of a shelf.

Summer Hours is by no means some quasi-Marxist ode to material possessions; far from it. What it does is shine a glaring light on the power that neutral belongings can have on people. With the house and its tangibles in their lives, this one French family had something to bring them together. With it gone, so too is their physical kingship and birth right. There is much sadness to be found in that.