Summerland is a British wartime drama from 2020, written for the screen and directed by Jessica Swale, in which Gemma Arterton plays a woman whose solitary life is interrupted by an evacuee she never asked for. Listed under drama, romance and war, it runs 99 minutes and is on K-Time with a Persian dub and Persian subtitles.
What is Summerland about?
The Second World War is under way, and an Englishwoman who has arranged her life so that nobody else is in it suddenly finds an evacuee placed in her care. Her first reaction is plain: she wants him gone, and she sets about trying to make that happen. The film follows what comes after that refusal. Sharing a roof with someone she did not choose slowly wears down the distance she keeps from other people, and the arrangement she meant to end becomes one she starts to value. The war stays mostly at the edges of the frame. At the centre is a story about womanhood, love and friendship, and about a guarded person learning, against her own intentions, to let somebody in.
About the cast
Gemma Arterton takes the central role of the Englishwoman. Gugu Mbatha-Raw is billed second, and the cast list continues with two long-established names of British stage and screen, Penelope Wilton and Tom Courtenay. Lucas Bond and Dixie Egerickx are among the younger performers, with Dominic McGreevy and Amanda Root also credited. Jessica Swale directs.
Context & significance
British cinema has returned again and again to the home front, to the war as it was lived away from the battlefield by the people who stayed behind. Evacuation is one of that tradition's richest subjects: households across the country were asked to take in strangers sent away from cities under threat of bombing, and the arrangement threw together people who would otherwise never have met. Summerland uses that situation for an intimate character study rather than a combat story, which is why romance sits beside war in its genre listing. The film was warmly received by audiences, and at 99 minutes it is a compact, self-contained watch. It is a United Kingdom production.
Watching Summerland on Ktime
You can watch Summerland on K-Time, a streaming home for Persian speakers living abroad, with menus and browsing in Farsi. Both a Persian-dubbed version and Persian subtitles are offered. This page is free to read; to start the film, log in to your K-Time account.