by Sarah D. Bunting

Playing a game in the car, 9-year-old Mary (Perla Haley-Jardine) covers her 16-year-old sister Kelly’s (Willa Holland) eyes. Then she covers her mother’s eyes for a minute, as a joke — but her mother (Hope Davis) is driving, and there’s an accident, and Mom is killed. Cut to Mary waking up from a nightmare days later, face still cut up, wailing “I want Mom to come back” over and over again as her father Joe (Colin Firth) tries to comfort her.

A Summer in Genoa follows the family to Italy the next June; Joe has taken a job at the university there, to give the whole family of change of scenery. The scenery itself is gorgeous — Marcel Zyskind’s cinematography evokes the various feelings of sleepwalking, panic, and claustrophobia only hinted at by the script, not to mention the Italian summer sun — but a quietly resentful Kelly sneaks out of piano lessons to tryst with her Italian boyfriend, and Mary is seeing her mother’s ghost all over town. Maybe not the change Joe had in mind.

Not much really “happens” in the film. The subplot you might expect, a romance between Joe and his old college friend/Genovan tour guide Barbara (Catherine Keener), never materializes; much of the danger hinted at in the up-tilted shots of narrow alleys is just that, hinted at. No epiphanies, no cleansing bursts, just the slow and frustrating business of putting one more day between yourself and the event that stole your old life, and writer/director Michael Winterbottom (24 Hour Party People, among others) consistently steers the story away from disingenuous emotional beats.

He also gets amazing performances from the actors. Firth’s steadiness is a given, but the kids do a fantastic job with their roles; they’re both realistically loveable and realistically annoying, as needed. Kelly is sometimes thoughtless and a snot, but she’s fundamentally sweet, and Holland’s ability to convey Kelly’s need to find and attract boys is amazing. Ditto Haley-Jardine’s willingness to cry ugly; she pulls several faces that any older sibling will recognize immediately.

It’s put together well, Firth takes his shirt off a few times…it’s a worthwhile hour and a half. But mindless hot-weather fun it ain’t.

Summer Timeline: The movie starts in the wintertime, with the crash, but quickly moves to summer, and ends with the girls’ first day at their new international school.

Enviable Vacation Locale: Literally, of course it is: it’s Italy. Figuratively, since they’ve gone there to try to deal with their grief, less so.

Coming Of Age: Joe considers a romance with a student; Kelly Totally Does It in her room with Lorenzo (or maybe Fabio? It’s kind of hard to tell whether she’s only dating the one of them, which, get it, girl); Mary tries to follow her mother’s phantom into traffic, thus somehow expiating herself; Barbara has to deal with the fact that her long-held feelings for Joe ain’t happening. Lots of emotional ground covered.

Quick-Burning Summer Romance: Fabio (and maybe Lorenzo?) has a Vespa, and friends with marijuana. Enough said.

Best Summer Ever?: “Best” is not the word I’d use, but under the circumstances, everyone makes out okay (as it were).

Unconventional Ways to Beat the Heat: Kelly sunbathes topless on a speedboat at one point, but other than that…gelato is not exactly “unconventional” (but still recommended).

Summer Fashions: You know those super-short eyelet dresses you desperately wish you could pull off? Kelly has a whole collection, and the legs for them. Man, I miss my teenage body.

Worth the A/C?: You only get 90 minutes’ worth, but yeah.

Share!