Review of A Summer Tale

This is a weak film. It has themes that the kids of the right age to appreciate its childish plot aren't ready to grapple with: the little girl's dream of what to be when grown up is a prostitute; the adoptive father character calls a passing black man the Swedish for a "nig*er". The film has the usual little kids' plot but chucks in provocations like these.It really doesn't have much going for it at all. The film is like the wonderful Swedish film about another child with parental difficulties, but written at a remedial level. My Life as a Dog is a marvellous film with it's playing my the lead actors, magical plot full of odd occurrences but due to the strength of the writing, believable ones. There is even time for the side-plot of the dog that the boy has had to give up, the tragic results of this which are kept from him and what the imagination of the boy does with this dog's absence. THAT is the film to see. Give this hopeless one about undertaker and kids a miss.