Films I Saw in January

In the past five years, I shared a year-end list of the films I saw throughout 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020. For 2021, I decided to do this monthly and share a list of the films I saw during each month of the year. These are the films I saw in January, which make up a total of 10 titles. As always, films marked with a heart (❤) are my favourites.

Lassiter (1984) | Starring Tom Selleck, Jane Seymour, Lauren Hutton and Bob Hoskins
Dad (1989) | Starring Jack Lemmon, Ted Danson, Ethan Hawke and Olympia Dukakis
Sunshine (1999) | Starring Ralph Fiennes, Rosemary Harris and Rachel Weisz
Uprising (2001) | Starring Leelee Sobieski, Hank Azaria and David Schwimmer
Želary (2003) | Starring Anna Geislerová, György Cserhalmi and Jaroslava Adamová
Sarajevo (2014) | Starring Florian Teichtmeister, Heino Ferch and Melika Foroutan
Naked Among Wolves [Nackt unter Wölfen] (2015) | Starring Florian Stetter
A Faithful Man [L'Homme fidèle] (2018) | Starring Louis Garrel and Laetitia Casta
A Call to Spy (2019) | Starring Sarah Megan Thomas, Stana Kati and Radhika Apte
❤ Summerland (2020) | Starring Gemma Arterton, Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Lucas Bond

I only saw 10 films in January; half of them are World War II dramas and the great majority are European films. I think you can see a pattern here.

My favourite of the bunch was definitely Summerland. It's about a reclusive writer named Alice, who lives in a small town in East Sussex and is entrusted with the care of a young boy, Frank, after the London Blitz. Although she doesn't want to take care of him, as she fears it will interfere with her work, she reluctantly lets him stay. Over the following days, Alice and Frank begin to bond after he takes an interest in her scholarly work (she's writing a book about Fata Morgana mirages). What Alice doesn't know, but eventually finds out, is that Frank is actually the son of her former lover, Vera, whom she met and fell in love with during her university days.

Summerland really is a lovely film. I love the storyline and the cast, especially Gemma Arterton (whom I've been a fan of for years) and Lucas Bond, the little kid who plays Frank. I also love the fact that it was filmed on location, so there's all these beautiful shots of the sea and the Seven Sisters cliffs in Seaford. If you haven't seen Summerland, please give it a try.

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