Movie Review: Glenn Close stars in a “Beach Read” that might cure insomnia — “The Summer Book”

“The Summer Book” is a picturesque period piece based on a novel Tove Jannson wrote, inspired by her own experiences living on an island in the Gulf of Finland. It aims for “lyrical” and “meditative” as it tells the story of a little girl and her father dealing with or avoiding the grief that came with the loss of the child’s mother.

But if the distributors of it were cheeky enough to make their own book “based on the film,” it’d be nothing but pretty pictures. It’s characterized by dry, scenic emptiness, a dash of melodrama and a Glenn Close performance of pointillistic perfection.

Nothing much happens, and not all that much is experienced in it, either.

Sophie, her illustrator father and wisened grandmother boat off to the deserted island where their family has summered for decades. The child (newcomer Emily Matthews) is six or so, and whatever happened to her mother is not something she can articulate or properly process. Dad (Anders Danielsen Lie) has memories of this place that probably haunt him, so he throws himself into his work and in coaxing back to life a poplar tree he planted — perhaps with his wife, or in her honor the year before.

Grandma (Close) twinkles and stumbles about with the infirmities of great age but the confidence of someone who knows every rock at the seaside, ever corner of the tiny forest there. She has a notion of what these two are going through, but doesn’t have much in the way of words of comfort or wisdom to offer.

The child can be a chatterbox, and granny has only so much patience for the incessant observations and questions such as “Are there ants in heaven?”

“Life is long, Sophia.”

They will spend the summer wandering, boating around the archipeligo and planning for the Midsomer bonfire, something they’ve always celebrated here.

Dad puts up a tent, another tradition, and grandma introduces Sophia to the wonders of nature and woodcarving as Dad practically disappears from the picture.

Thank heavens somebody brings Sophia a cat to adopt. Too bad it’s a cat.

“The more I love him, the less he loves me!”

But the child experiences this world and this life in what should turn out to be the formative memories of her future. Perhaps as an adult she’ll decide this was when she realized what loss was (not likely). But certainly she’ll figure out how inane she sounded saying this to her granny, who’s told her and us she helped found The Girl Scouts of Finland.

“I came to tell you what it’s like sleeping in a tent. I thought you would like to know.”

Too much of the movie is a read-between-the-lines/fill-its-holes-yourself experience — quiet idylls, grandma looking at the sea, the cove, the cabin and the trees as if this might be the last time, indulging Sophia as she’s really “getting” the place for the first time.

At one point, grandma runs naked through the trees, a scene not set up as “something we did as children.” That is merely implied. Or perhaps granny is going natural. Or a bit balmy.

The insights about the fragility of moss balance with the superstitions of grandma’s people.

“We’ll put seven leaves under your pillow and you’ll dream of the man you’ll marry.”

Sophia decides to test her newfound interest in the Almighty with a prayer — “Dear God, I’m bored as BEEF. Let SOMEthing happen.” Because “even a STORM” would be a break from the tedium.

Sure enough, that’s what happens, something served up in six thousand, two-hundred and seventy-two melodramas that preceded “The Summer Book.”

Whatever the meditative, “inspiring” merits of the novel, veteran British TV writer Robert Jones and “The One I Love” nepo baby director Charlie McDowell (son of Mary Steenbergen and Malcolm McDowell) don’t find its cinematic equivalents in this adaptation.

But Glenn Close, America’s Judi Dench (Give her an honorary Oscar, for the love of Mike.), makes the film watchable with another spot-on performance. Every gaze at the horizon, every movement, every gesture seems exactly right, calculated to seem as natural as taking that next deep breath.

Even if the script doesn’t move us through this character, Close almost manages that with just a look, a sigh or an old woman’s last wistful twirl of her Scandinavian pony tails.

Rating: unrated, nudity

Cast: Glenn Close, Anders Danielsen Lie and Emily Matthews

Credits: Directed by Charlie McDowell, scripted by Robert Jones, based on a novel by Tove Jansson. A Charades release.

Running time: 1:35