Summer Hours: Synopsis

How much or how little are we obliged to honor the wishes of our parents after they’re gone? This is the poignant question posed by Assayas in "Summer Hours." After their mother dies suddenly, New York designer Adrienne (Juliette Binoche), Parisian university professor Frédéric (Charles Berling) and Shanghai-based businessman Jérémie (Jérémie Renier) must decide what to do with her considerable estate and exceptional art collection. Together, they face the end of their childhood, their ties to France and the loss of common ground, prompting some of the most moving passages in Assayas’s entire body of work. Only the greatest filmmakers have found such a balance between the heaviness of loss and the lightness of time’s passage and every moment of "Summer Hours" is imbued with sadness and joy, as well as despair and illumination.