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2009’s Top 10 Repeat Offenders in Olivier Assayas and Charles Berling

You’d have to scale back to Y2K’s Les destinees sentimentales for the last time these two worked together, but what a perfectly timed “family reunion” for the French combo. Summer Hours is presented as an ensemble (kids, neighbors and appraisers flooding the frame), but in a subtle, almost unassuming lead role, Charles Berling plays the eldest of the siblings who earnestly wants to do things right with the family inheritance and tree.

Eric Lavallée

Published on January 5, 2010

#3. SUMMER HOURS

You’d have to scale back to Y2K’s Les destinées sentimentales for the last time these two worked together, but what a perfectly timed “family reunion” for the French combo. Summer Hours is presented as an ensemble (kids, neighbors and appraisers flooding the frame), but in a subtle, almost unassuming lead role, Charles Berling plays the eldest of the siblings who earnestly wants to do things right with the family inheritance and tree. It’s the type of role that doesn’t point to itself – and is one of the additional factors as to why critics thought so highly of the film. Assayas should use the actor more often.

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Eric Lavallée

Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist, and critic at IONCINEMA.com, established in 2000. A regular at Sundance, Cannes, and Venice, Eric holds a BFA in film studies from the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013, he served on the narrative competition jury at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson’s "This Teacher" (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022, he was a New Flesh Juror for Best First Feature at the Fantasia International Film Festival. Current top films for 2023 include The Zone of Interest (Glazer), Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell (Pham Thien An), Totem (Lila Avilés), La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher), All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt (Raven Jackson).