User Reviews

"Sommerhäuser" (which means literally "summer houses", as you may have guessed) is a German film from 2017. The English-language international title is "The Garden", so slightly different compared to the original. This was the first full feature film release by writer and director Sonja Kröner. She worked on short films before that. This is a family drama and this is really the only drama you can categorize this film as, a family drama. A man and his family travel to hiss deceased grandmother's summer house, but it does not turn out to be the harmonic vacation they may have been going for. It is neither a new film anymore, but also new enough I suppose. The cast includes a handful of known names like Halmer, Hörbiger, Loibl, Silberschneider and probably the most known due to recent awards wins Laura Tonke, but even she is not a big star or anything, so it is not too surprising this film did not really make any big waves with audiences after/since its release. It did manage more awards recognition though than I expected I must say as this film has been going mostly under the radar and also wasn't a huge commercial success. Of course, this is not necessary for awards recognition and honestly this is exactly the kind of movie to be shown at many festivals and some it was a bit more on the successful side I guess. I would not really agree with the awards and say they were appropriate. Werner, the only one from the cast, who managed to score nominations for example was among the better performances for sure, but not impressive by any means at all. I suppose they appreciated her courage to appear naked in this movie despite her progressed age, but yeah it's not the first time she's done that and I think she isn't really awards-worthy here. But what is more baffling is probably the actually pretty prestigious Bavarian Film Award win for Kröner as I would say the script was really nothing too good here, perhaps the film's weakest side and for me the main reason why I give it a thumbs-down all in all. The problem is not that it is a slow movie. Not at all. But if you don't deliver exciting action, you need to score in other departments and this was not frequent enough in opinion, if there at all. As a character study, it is not a success, even if the solid cast manages occasionally to elevate the mediocre material. A bit of a pity the screenplay wasn't better as then it could have been a far more entertaining movie. Kröner's direction was also not too shabby, especially for a rookie full feature effort. But as a whole the film did not feel as essential or realistic or interesting to have me on the edge of my seat and keep my attention from start to finish. The latter by the way includes under 90 minutes, slightly, in the version I saw and not considerably over as it says here on imdb. But yeah, maybe this also has to do with the credits. Don't try to find out. This movie is dedinitely not a failure, but also not good enough for a thumbs-up. Watch something else instead.