Synopsis: Widely hailed by critics as 2009’s best film, Summer Hours is the great contemporary French filmmaker Olivier Assayas’s most personal film to date. Three siblings, played by Juliette Binoche, Charles Berling, and Jérémie Renier, must decide what to do with the country estate and objects they’ve inherited from their mother. From this simple story, Assayas creates a nuanced, exquisitely made drama about the material of globalized modern living. Naturalistic and unsentimental yet suffused with genuine warmth, this is that rare film that pays respect to family by treating it with honesty.

Review: I have seen a lot of films about family drama and even the aftermaths of death and how it can affect a family.  Never before have I see such a masterful and emotional work as Summer Hours.  Summer Hours is a film by the great Olivier Assayas.

The Summer Hours is many things, amongst those is insightful, unique and emotionally trying.  The film is largely quiet, meaning that there is very little music, and that really adds to the feel and atmosphere of the movie.

This Criterion Edition of the film gives a new high-definition transfer, new video interview with Assayas, an on-set documentary, an hour long documentary, the theatrical trailer, a new and improved English subtitle translation and a booklet with an essay by critic Kent Jones.

Rating: Criterion Collection, Foreign Films, Emotional Drama