There is nothing quite like the love between a parent and their child, especially when it goes in both directions. Many of us adore our parents and find them to be the cornerstone of our lives. However, it is also sadly quite true that there comes a point where our relationship begins to change, which is often preceded by the shocking and unfortunate realization that the people we idolized in our younger years are flawed, imperfect people just like us, individuals trying to navigate a world they too don’t understand, and not the eternally wise, all-knowing heroes we thought they were in our childhood. It’s not an easy realization (and perhaps one I am making seem much larger than it is in reality), but it is something that is worth discussing, which is exactly what Alessandra Lacorazza Samudio does in In the Summers, her ambitious directorial debut in which she tells a decades-spanning story of two sisters who visit their father every summer, starting in their early years and leading up to their adulthood – the visits begin as genuinely exciting opportunities for the girls to bond with a father they adore and idolize about all else, but as the years progress, his flaws start to emerge, with his daughters realizing that he is not as perfect as they thought he was when they were younger. It’s a poignant, hauntingly beautiful story that captures some very elusive ideas, piecing them together to create a powerful testament to the power of family and the journey we take over time to get to know one another – and if we are lucky, the strongest bonds are those formed not when we are young and naive, but rather in our adulthood, when we can look beyond the imperfections of our parents and view them as people who simply are going through life for the first time as well, giving them the compassion and grace that is so rarely afforded to them, but which they wholeheartedly deserve.

There seems to be a neverending stream of coming-of-age films produced every year, partially because they tend to be the most popular amongst young, rambunctious directors who have realized that making a film based on your upbringing can be a strong way to get noticed, as there is a long tradition of these stories being quite popular amongst audiences and critics, specifically since they tend to be a lot more relatable and easy to digest. However, Lacorazza Samudio refuses to exclusively depend on the conventions of a genre that can often be dreadfully cliched when it isn’t handled correctly, which is precisely why In the Summers feels slightly different to several similarly-themed works. Part of this is the structure of the film, which covers several years in the lives of these people, divided into three distinct chapters that showcase roughly two decades, exploring their journey and how time causes them to change and develop in different but no less compelling ways. Rather than focusing on a set period, the director leaps between the years, which serves the purpose of not only giving us more information on the extent to which this family grew and changed as the years progressed, but also finding an abundance of opportunity to involve the audience in developing our bespoke relationship with this narrative. The film takes place over three summers spread over many years, and its in the ambigious spaces in between the chapters that some of the most intriguing conversations can be provoked – the exact situations that changed the course of their lives, which are unseen to us, and which we can only infer through the contextual clues present in the dialogue, as well as some unspoken moments that require us to actively engage with the film on a much deeper and far more profound level.

There’s something very tender and heartfelt about the story, but it doesn’t shy away from the difficult discussions. Lacorazza Samudio understands the fickle boundary between heartfelt emotions and more melodramatic, heavy-handed techniques, and she actively avoids succumbing to the temptation to draw on these elements, despite how common they tend to be in these stories. In the Summers is a film that benefits from an almost objective, distant perspective – the director is allowing us to explore her memories, but refuses to give us access to anything other than a few key moments, choosing to keep certain elements private for the sake of both the efficiency of time (since it would be feasibly impossible to cover absolutely everything), and also to prevent the need to explore every aspect of her upbringing, choosing instead to be intentionally selective and creating a more rigorous, complex portrait of this family, dividing it into a few moments that ultimately carry enough weight to allow us to draw our meaning from what we are presented with throughout the film. The emotions she chooses to evoke are a lot more subtle and nuanced – there are very few moments of predictable hysteria or ones where we are forced to witness the plotless meanderings that don’t carry nearly enough weight to be included. It’s a tightly-constructed coming-of-age drama in which every scene is essential, and where realism is prioritised over stirring particular sensations. It moves at a slow but deliberate pace and feels like it is genuinely capturing something unique in the process, leading to a truly special examination of this family dynamic.

At the core of In the Summers are some wonderful performances. The two protagonists – Eva and Violeta – are played by three different actors over the course of the film, a deliberate attempt to not only show the passage of time (which is more effectively done with different actors playing the characters at different stages, rather than trying to give off the illusion of the same actor playing all three roles), but to imply that these characters have changed as the years have progressed, becoming increasingly different versions of themselves, while still maintaining the same existential quandaries and personal challenges that connect them. Luciana Elisa Quinonez, Allison Salinas and Sasha Calle are Eva, while Dreya Castillo. Kimaya Thais and Lio Mehiel (whose performance in Mutt is one of the most extraordinary depictions of identity ever committed to film) are Violeta – and it’s Calle and Mehiel in particular that draw our attention as the adult versions of the characters, bringing so much nuance and complexity to these challenging roles. However, the anchor of the film is René Pérez Joglar (otherwise known as Residente), who plays the patriarch of this film and handles the various challenges associated with this role with such incredible skill. He starts the film as this world-weary but eternally optimistic man who is the hero of his daughters, but as they grow up, we begin to see his flaws, and rather than suddenly portraying the part of Vicente as a deadbeat, ineffective father, Joglar takes a more compassionate approach, highlighting his imperfections but still showing that he’s a good man trying his best to be a father to daughters who are outgrowing their undying devotion to him, but still are intent on finding a way to love him. Considering he is best-known as a highly successful musician, Joglar had quite a challenge ahead of him, but he proves to be an extraordinary talent, every decision he makes throughout this film being tender, earnest and genuinely beautiful.

As one of the great poets of his generation, Leonard Cohen summarized the entirety of the human condition when he sang “there is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in” – and it seems like this is perfectly applicable to In the Summers, a film about navigating the difficult relationships we have with our parents as time progresses. Those imperfections may become more pronounced as we grow up and begin to view the people who raised us as being just as flawed as we are – but yet, with some compassion and patience, we can see that these flaws are not a failing on their part, but just a result of every one of us being undeniably and inextricably human, where perfection is a concept that no one has yet to achieve, and likely never will. It is a stunningly beautiful film in which Lacorazza Samudio pours her heart and soul into exploring her past, doing so with such incredible elegance and humour, leading to a poignant, heartfelt examination of the human condition and its various challenges that we all face at some point. Anchored by some stunning performances that capture the spirit of the human condition in vivid, compelling detail, and defined by an abundance of heart and soul, the film is a magnificent achievement in every conceivable way, and proves to be an absolute triumph in terms of both form and style, being one of the year’s most poignant and poetic works of humanistic filmmaking.