The Summer Book is another small, quiet family story. I keep stumbling upon these calm and quiet films lately. They are soothing. This one stars Glenn Close.

The Summer Book places us on a small, private island in the Gulf of Finland. Grandmother (Glenn Close), Father (Anders Danielsen Lie), and young Sophia (Emily Matthews) spend the summer there in a rough cabin that has been in the family for many years.

Sophia’s mother recently died and her father struggles to cope. He needs to give Sophia more attention but finds it hard. He works during the summer illustrating a book. He plants a poplar tree in honor of his wife and tends it carefully all summer long.

Sophia has her own struggles, and often finds her way into her grandmother’s bed for comfort at night. During the day she plants flowers, tends to the moss, plays in the water, and chats with her grandmother. They celebrate midsummer.

One day they row to a neighboring island and see a modern house the neighbors have built there. Another time they take their motor boat to an island with an abandoned lighthouse and get stuck there overnight by a storm.

Those are the kinds of action you can expect in this softly lyrical film. Beautiful water, brilliant sunsets, swans, trees, and a black cat form the backdrop.

As Sophia is growing up, Grandmother is growing more and more frail. She coughs and struggles to breathe. Grandmother’s unspoken goal for the summer is to get Father to realize how much Sophia needs him and help him reconnect with his daughter.

The film explores life’s beginnings and endings, and the value of having love to share between those two life events. If something simple and subtle sounds good to you, The Summer Book is streaming on Prime Video.