In the Summers Review: Poignant Look at Parenting

In the Summers, from writer and director Alessandra Lacorazza, is narratively thin but captures the emotional core of parenting after a divorce.

In part one, the girls are still young. Eva (Luciana Quinonez, Terrifier 3) is a beauty, and her sister Violeta (Dreya Castillo) seems to be struggling with her gender identity. They show up to visit their father, Vincente (Residente). He has moved away from their mother and back to his childhood home in New Mexico. He lives in his mother’s home, which the girls are delighted to discover has a pool. Their visit is good, but we can see flashes of violence beneath the surface when he calls the girls’ mother after Violeta cuts her hair short.

In the next section, the girls return, this time in their teen years. Eva (Allison Salinas, Panama) hungers for her father’s affection, and Violeta (Kimaya Thais, The Red Thread) is looking for a fight. There is a greater sense of the girls’ distance from their father, and the simmering violence that we saw in the first part is amplified in this visit. 

Things deteriorate further in the third chapter, with Violeta not making the trip at all. By the fourth chapter, both Eva (Sasha Calle, The Flash) and Violeta (Lio Mehiel, Mutt) have found some sense of peace in the boundaries that they have with their father, as he is parenting another daughter, hopefully changing the trajectory for his life. 

Because In the Summers is told over the course of about a decade, there is as much unsaid as said in the film. The state of the pool is one of the best indicators of how things are going between the sisters and their father. In the first section, it is sparkling and clean, the perfect place for an afternoon of fun. When we return, the pool is grimy and uncared for. There is trash floating in it, and it would not be safe to swim in it. By the third chapter, the pool is completely unusable, and we see remnants of gifts from past visits drowned in the murky waters. In the fourth section, the pool is empty, but it is clean, possibilities ahead.

The standout performance in this is that of rapper turned actor Residente. As the one constant throughout the movie, he is both the fulcrum for his daughters’ lives and the life of the film. He tenderly portrays a man struggling to connect with his children while battling addiction and a life that didn’t go the way he intended. We see a man who is clearly intelligent but who has not been able to do for himself what he might have imagined. That unrealized potential provides the fuel for his anger, and that is inflamed by his alcoholism. 

One of the negative aspects of In the Summers is that it is narratively thin. This is a film examining larger themes and as such, there isn’t a lot of story there. Sometimes, in movies like this, a story is told in what is not said, but in this instance, there are questions that are simply not answered, which is felt to some degree in the final two chapters, leaving them somewhat unsatisfying. 

Despite this flaw, In the Summers is a roundly successful movie. Lacorazza manages to capture the sense of longing for connection that can be felt between estranged parents and their children while at the same time recognizing that some rifts can’t be healed by any number of summer breaks. There are some wounds that no pools can wash away.

In the Summers will be released on digital platforms on November 5, 2024.