Summerland | 2020 | PG | – 2.3.2

Why is “Summerland” rated PG? The MPAA rating has been assigned for “thematic content, some suggestive comments, language, and smoking.” The Kids-In-Mind.com evaluation includes two women in a romantic relationship, a couple of kissing scenes between women, a few cleavage revealing outfits, several arguments, discussions of people dying in war, children being separated from their families and evacuated from cities during wartime, a near drowning, a couple of bloody scrapes, and some moderate language and name-calling. Read our parents’ guide below for details on sexual content, violence & strong language.

---

Set in a seaside town during World War II when children from cities were sent to live with other families away from the bombings of urban areas: A reclusive, seemingly misanthropic woman (Gemma Arterton) is sent an evacuated boy (Lucas Bond) to care for, and after protesting the invasion of her privacy, becomes accustomed to having him around and together they navigate the difficulties of war and loss. Also with Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Penelope Wilton, Tom Courtenay, Dixie Egerickx, Dominic McGreevy and Amanda Root. Directed by Jessica Swale. [Running Time: 1:39]

Summerland SEX/NUDITY 2

 – A woman remembers fondly meeting another woman and falling in love; there are a few scenes of their early romance. A woman touches another woman’s hand and the other woman gasps and smiles. Women dance and drink at a women’s club and we see one couple dancing closely together and touching hands. Two women wearing undergarments that reveal cleavage, bare shoulders and legs to the mid-thighs step into a pond and swim together; then lay on the grass together talking and one woman rests her head on the abdomen of the other woman. Two women lie in bed together; one caresses the hair of the other and they kiss as the scene ends. Two women talk about their relationship and that one of them wants to have a child.
► Two women argue as one packs her bags to move out; she says that she wants to have a family and wants to be a mother. A woman asks a boy, “Would you think it’s strange if a woman loved another woman?” and the boy replies, “No. It’s not as bad as marrying someone you don’t like.” A boy asks a woman if she kissed another woman, and if she kissed her on the lips; and the woman replies, “Mostly.” A girl tells a boy that the woman he is living with is a witch and that she will “work you till you’re bones, then burn you or do sex things to you.” A boy asks a woman, “Why don’t you have a husband?”
► Women in a nightclub wear low-cut dresses that reveal cleavage, bare shoulders and backs.

Summerland VIOLENCE/GORE 3

 – A boy yells for a woman to stop the car they are riding in, he gets out of the car and runs along a rocky ledge, he climbs over the edge and jumps into the ocean, swims to a large rock where he stands as the woman calls for him to come back, he slips and falls into the water, dips underwater and struggles to surface until the woman swims to him and pulls him to shore; they lie on the shore coughing. Air raid sirens blare and people on a street run to a shelter where they hide and we hear explosions above them as a baby cries and a boy shivers. A boy runs away from school and a man and a girl chase after him trying to find where he might have gone; a woman speeds in a car and stops at a couple of train stations searching for him until she finds him in a bombed out street (we see flames and rubble and a person being carried on a stretcher) in the city standing in front of a burning building that was where he lived with his mother. A woman tells another woman that a boy’s father died and they argue about who will tell the boy. Two women struggle at a door, one trying to close it on the other. Teen boys run through a yard and knock another boy to the ground (we see his bloody knee and he whimpers when a woman puts antiseptic on it). A girl is shown with a bloody ankle wound after falling on rocks, a woman cleans the wound, and she winces. A woman leaves a boy on a hillside and drives away from him; she returns and is unable to find him and seems panicked (she does find him and he is OK). A boy runs with a wooden plane toward a cliff and a woman tackles him before he falls over the edge (we see the plane splintered on the rocks below and the boy is not injured). Two women drive recklessly on a road and screech the tires to make a turn. A woman sends a boy away to another family and he becomes upset when he is told that he will have to go to a different school; he yells at her as he walks away, “Why did you lie?”
► Teenage boys put tree branches and dirt through the mail slot in a woman’s house; they run away laughing when she catches them and yells at them (this happens a few times). A woman in a shop buys a pack of cigarettes and a chocolate bar after a child says that she wants the bar and her mother says no; the second woman thinks that the first woman is buying the chocolate for the child but she takes it and leaves the store (we hear the child crying as she walks away). A boy and a girl run through a town and nearly run into two women; the girl introduces the boy to her grandmother and when the boy tells her where he lives the girl elbows him in the stomach and the grandmother pulls the girl away by the arm. A woman answers her front door to find a woman with a young boy and the second woman tells her that the boy will be in her care; the woman screams, “I don’t want him.” A woman asks a man about a boy left in her care, “When can I get rid of him?” A woman storms into a man’s office and pours a bag filled with dirt and tree branches on his desk; she demands that he should discipline the boys responsible for putting the items through her mail slot.
► A woman makes a comment about what happens when you’re bombed and says, “You’ll burn your skin off.” A girl tells a boy that her mother is dead. A woman talks about her father dying at sea and that they performed a Norse ceremony for him by setting a small boat alight and putting it into the water. A girl tells a boy that a woman is a witch and that she will make him a “slave” and she’ll “work you till you’re bones, then burn you or do sex things to you,” and “They’ll never find your body.” A woman yells at a boy, “Why are you lying?” when he tells her that he sees something in the sky. A woman yells at a boy to put a record he is holding down. A woman tells a boy, “Life is not kind, and you may even think about killing yourself.” A woman tells a boy, “Heaven was made up by the Christians.” A woman talks about pagans and people seeing patterns in the sky. An elderly woman is shown in a hospital bed with an IV. A woman tells a boy that most people think two women being in love is “wicked and a sin” and that “we should burn in hell.”
► A woman argues with a girl about whether she told a boy about his father’s death; the woman grabs the girl by the arm a couple of times and pleads with her not to tell him until the child runs away. A boy and a girl argue and the boy accuses the girl of being jealous because she doesn’t have a mother and the girl blurts out that the boy’s father is dead, and then the boy runs away. A woman snaps at a boy in several scenes, saying, “Don’t touch my things”; she also tells him to cook his own food as she gives him a plate with an uncooked egg, a piece of ham and a raw potato. A woman frustrated by two young children knocking on the door snaps at them and sends them away when they ask for a donation to care for the elderly. A woman at a typewriter crumples a piece of paper and throws it on the floor in frustration. A woman walks angrily through town and passes two women that try to speak to her but she does not respond. A girl told to be partners with a new boy in class draws a chalk line down the middle of their desk and she tells him that she does not share. A girl tells a boy, “I might be running away soon. I am an inadequate offspring and I don’t fulfill the feminine ideal.” A woman describes her and another woman as “Two spinsters that can barely walk out together,” and she packs her bags as the other woman pleads for her to stay.
► We hear that a boy’s father is a pilot in the air force. A woman talks about writing on women in folklore and that the women always get blamed for something.” A woman talks to a boy about myths and magic and says, “People need something to believe in.” A woman talks to a boy about people throughout history believing that they saw floating islands in the sky and that she wants to find proof of it.
► A boy and a girl play with a beetle; we see it crawling on their hands. A girl tells a boy that there are adders in the woods and asks if he wants to go catch one.

Summerland LANGUAGE 2

 – 1 possible anatomical term, 4 mild obscenities, name-calling (stupid, coward, evacuee, maverick, ridiculous, ignorant, spies, bad apple, beast on the beach, mad, mindless, scared, normal person, liar, witch, jealous, lunacy), exclamations (oi, for pity’s sake, bugger off, keep your pecker up, hokum, hey, you’re joking, you’re a pain in my side, what on Earth, gosh), 5 religious exclamations (e.g. Oh Lord, God, Thank God, For God’s Sake, Blessed Chance Of That). | profanity glossary |

Summerland SUBSTANCE USE

 – Women at a club drink cocktails, and a woman drinks a glass of whiskey. A woman smokes a cigarette while walking, a woman smokes cigarettes while writing in several scenes, and a woman smokes in her house in several scenes.

Summerland DISCUSSION TOPICS

 – World War II, folklore, magic, caring for others, eccentrics, same-sex love, trust, physics, grief, death of loved ones, end of relationships, saying goodbye.

Summerland MESSAGE

 – Sharing grief with another person can help to deal with the loss.