Summerland (2020)

Summerland is the kind of wartime drama that sneaks up on you: intimate, windswept, and quietly radiant, with the sea air of Kent practically salt-staining the frame. Gemma Arterton gives a beautifully layered performance as a woman armored by intellect and solitude, and the film’s real pleasure is watching that armor soften—not through melodrama, but through small, sincere moments of care, memory, and longing. Jessica Swale directs with a tender hand, letting romance and regret mingle with folklore and myth in a way that feels like a lullaby told to an anxious world, while Gugu Mbatha-Raw adds a warm, aching countercurrent. If you’re looking for a big, plot-heavy war film this isn’t it, but if you want something poignant and humane—handsomely shot, gently romantic, and emotionally honest—Summerland is a lovely surprise.

Summerland is aiming for a tender wartime story about a guarded woman learning to love again, mixing a child-evacuee bond with a bittersweet romance and a postcard-pretty coastal setting. The problem is it often feels engineered to make you feel something rather than letting emotion arise naturally, with characters that can read more like symbols than fully lived-in people. If you’re allergic to gentle, slightly treacly drama and want historical texture, sharper pacing, or messier realism, this may strike you as pretty but insubstantial. Still, Gemma Arterton brings grit to the role, and if you’re in the mood for a soft, comforting tearjerker with handsome cinematography, it can do the job.