Film Review: GLORIOUS SUMMER: Helena Ganjalyan and Bartosz Szpak Deliver an Alluring Look at Emptiness [SXSW 2025]

Glorious Summer Review

Glorious Summer (2025) Film Review from the 32nd Annual South by South West Film Festival, a movie written and directed by Helena Ganjalyan and Bartosz Szpak and starring Magdalena Fejdasz, Helena Ganjalyan, Weronika Humaj and Daniela Komedera.

Somebody, somewhere seems to control everything but three women just wander around a beautiful palace somewhat aimlessly in search of a “glorious summer” in the mysterious new film, Glorious Summer, written and directed by Helena Ganjalyan and Bartosz Szpak. This movie looks like it was directed by Ari Aster in certain instances. That’s because the visuals are reminiscent of Midsommar, his hit movie from 2019. No Americans arrive to stir the pot in Glorious Summer but it feels that our three lovely ladies featured in this picture are into something far more inexplicably frightening than anything Aster can conjure up on-screen. That creepiness which is conveyed in this picture by its directors is matched by three fearless performances that could feel more like artistic expression than exercises in acting.

I only wish Glorious Summer had a central plot to drive the action. It’s all mystery and it’s an alluring one but there are no concrete answers as to what this “glorious summer” signifies except that the ladies are growing as people emotionally despite going absolutely nowhere too far physically. What the characters of this film do to keep busy seems like how people must have passed the time during the recent pandemic.

Never fear, the director, Helena Ganjalyan, has written herself the film’s most ambiguous role. In this movie, Ganjalyan’s character toys with the idea of breaking free of the chains that are around her, but probably won’t let those two ladies around her know that. These other women are portrayed, quite differently, by the actresses Magdalena Fejdasz and Daniela Komedera. Another lady (Weronika Humaj) appears later on and it seems she has a bit more experience with the outside world but who wants that when the sun is so bright and the summer is so -what’s the word?- oh, yeah glorious?

Fejdasz embodies a mysterious sense of dread in a performance full of compelling complexity. While the three women briefly talk and walk around their surroundings, they find a certain level of comfort mixed with another series of discomforting emotions which are heightened, for better or worse, by the beautiful trappings they find themselves immersed in. Daniela Komedera’s character appears to be the most optimistic of the bunch while Ganjalyan’s is the most cautiously inquisitive, for better or worse.

This film tackles difficult subject matter through its artistic liberties. There is quiet among the characters that drives them to seek out a certain level of tranquility but there is that lurking scariness that everything is not as calm as it may seem. Of course, the big question is how glorious can this summer be if it’s just the three of them exploring their premises and admiring the beauty in them? Can their thoughts of sleeping or experiencing eternal rest be relative to the conditions that they are facing in their current moments?

There’s no story line here other than the obvious one. That could be a turnoff for many viewers. Aster fans could be intrigued by the potential for thought-provoking scenarios which do indeed take center stage, just not in ways that allow the characters to go wild with their ambitions. They exhibit signs of being frightened but, perhaps, they prefer their “cage” at times as opposed to dealing with the uncertainties they could experience in the larger outside world.

Glorious Summer is powerfully constructed even without a major plot thread. All four of the actresses here are completely absorbed in their characters and play their roles pretty much to perfection. Daniela Komedera portrays her character with a level of hope and optimism that makes her the most outwardly appealing of the characters but the other two women play their parts with much mystery and depth. This film focuses on its title season with great delicacy and a certain level of precision that cannot be denied despite its lack of a really over-the-top or easy to decipher resolve. Whereas I may have hoped for a stronger conclusion, it’s the thoughts the viewer conjures up during the film of what could happen which gives the movie the strength it needs to stand on its own merits as a powerful piece of artistic film-making.

Rating: 7/10

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