Summer Hours
User Score
6.9 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 30 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 21 out of 30
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 30
  3. Negative: 7 out of 30

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  1. emilys
    Jul 7, 2009
    1
    I totally agree with KALTJ. The film was a big yawn. The only people I found who enjoyed it were those who had experienced trouble inheriting wealth. They identified with the situation portrayed. I thought the only interesting aspect was that the State's inheritance laws deprived the family of their inheritance. Vive La France.
  2. kaltj
    Jun 24, 2009
    2
    A deeply boring, interminably long exercise in naval gazing which somehow expects to be redeemed to American audiences by being shot in France (ooh, it's pretty!) and in French (ooh, it's foreign!). Overwrought, yawning meditations on globalization aside, you'll forgive me if i can't just bring myself to care about a movie in which the central conflict is whether the lead can bear the incredible emotional toll of selling his mother's armoire. This isn't a film, it's a craigslist post.… Expand
  3. davek
    Jun 7, 2009
    2
    My favorite reviewers, Stephanie Zacharek and A.O. Scott, loved it. I hated it. The film's approach to globalization was heavy handed, and the narrative about our relationships to objects, while also heavy handed, ignored the fact that such fetishistic pieces are only available to those with certain means. The lush beauty of the house, the art, the characters, and their clothes made me dislike them even more when they sat around lamenting their "unfortunate" dilemma: to keep this gorgeous house and its contents, or sell it and become even richer. I saw little in the way of meaningful conflict with these characters, and even less in the way of movement or character development. I haven't disliked high art this much since I read my last Henry James novel (but maybe I'm giving away my aesthetic hand here).… Expand
  4. justincase
    Jul 31, 2009
    1
    Perhaps one of the worst movies I've ever seen - definitely the worst "film" I've ever seen. Let me quote the lowest Metacritic critic, who still gave it a 50, by the way, "Even for a French drama, Summer Hours is so slow as to be practically still." How does any film described in that way deserve a 50? This was an exercise in BORING, BORING, BORING! What a waste of 102 minutes of my life. I really tried to get behind it and don't give me the "you can't appreciate finely crafted cinema" crap. This was just bad, yet six critics on Metacritic gave it 100...a 100...yes, I said 100, six of them! Unbelievable!!! Critics like these are like the people out there who "love" cavier or some kind of stinky cheese - give me a G*d damn break!… Collapse
  5. LeeR
    Aug 19, 2009
    0
    My wife and I walked out, and I consider this one of the three worst serious movies I've ever seen.

    Unless you truly love a "meditation" on something too ordinary to be called ordinary, where a crinkling of a brow constitutes major action, look elsewhere.

    If you think watching privileged people talk about, examine, catalogue, and discuss the family furniture and art collection,     this one's for you.… Expand
  6. commentscomments
    Jun 14, 2009
    2
    SUMMER HOURS joins a long line of movies about people coming together over a death in the family, 99 percent of which involve the privileged and somewhat famous, making the any connection to them tenuous at best. their so-called dramas are un-relate-able, unsympathetic, and worse, inspire disgust as characters whom we barely know pore over the valued artifacts and minutiae of burying their own. this director's fascination with this international class of art lovers, designers and financial experts bordered on sycophantic, as he exhaustively put viewers through endlessly familiar scenes with estate lawyers and other sour pusses employed by the death trade, with no discernible point to be made, except a unflattering desire to be one of them; to make sense of their elevated banter, their good old times, and their secrets.… Expand

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
84 out of 100

Universal acclaim - based on 27 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 26 out of 27
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 27
  3. Negative: 0 out of 27
  1. New York Magazine (Vulture)
    Reviewed by: David Edelstein
    100
    Hats off to Olivier Assayas's plain yet hauntingly beautiful Summer Hours, a true--albeit nonsecular--meditation on art and eternal life.
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  2. ReelViews
    Reviewed by: James Berardinelli
    75
    Summer Hours attracted two of France's acting luminaries, and their presence elevates the material. Charles Berling has the central role; the movie is largely told from his perspective. Juliette Binoche, with blonde hair, has a secondary part.
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  3. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Ray Bennett
    80
    Assayas makes the point that objects of fascination and affection to one generation may be far less so to the next. And he observes the role that people-friendly museums can play in keeping a nation's treasures safe with pleasing subtlety.
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