By Tim Jackson

This nuanced study in domestic malfunction is as universal as it is heartbreaking.

In The Summers, directed by Alessandra Lacorazza. Screening at the Coolidge Corner Theatre.

Sasha Calle and Lio Mehiel in a scene from In the Summers.

First-time director Alessandra Lacorazza knows that less can be more. In her minimalist feature, In The Summers, we follow two sisters, Violeta and Eva, on visits to their father, Vincente, in New Mexico over a ten year period. The sisters are played sequentially by six actors (Luciana Elisa Quinonez & Dreya Castillo, Allison Salinas & Kimaya Thais, Sasha Calle & Lio Mehiel). Each set of girls establishes a particular relationship with their father, providing a foundation for the next visit. Minor events, objects, sets, and locations are used throughout this elliptical narrative as the means to navigate a trip down a river of emotion.

The story begins when the youngest is around five. Over the four segments, they grow into themselves, and their relationship with their father shifts and changes. The visits from Los Angeles become more strained. The family’s mother is never seen or discussed; no explanation for the separation between the parents is given. The parent-child relationship is illuminated through mundane details of behavior. When moments become big and tense, as when Vincente drives drunk or erupts into bursts of erratic behavior, they shock us as much as it does the sisters.

The first episode establishes a warm connection between the three. Three is little conflict other than when little Violeta cuts off her hair and hides it from her father. That she is developing a queer identity becomes evident by the last visit. As a gay woman, director Lacorazza has chosen to sideline the issue — it is never discussed. And this is representative of the film — ellipses or missing information require views to imagine, interpret, or feel the interior life of the characters. The second visit is more troubled and there is a distressing conclusion. Violeta is absent on the third visit, leaving us to imagine why. By the final episode, both girls have become independent young women who appear to understand more about the world than their father, who is caught up in his macho Latin masculinity. In the years between visits, Vincette gains and loses a girlfriend; he fathers another child. We witness the flow of events over the years without judgment. Physical abuse is absent; just the grinds of slow disillusionment. Both sides yearn for love and empathy.

The relationships are fraught with conflict. Vincente wants to be a loving father, but he is poor at setting boundaries and doesn’t comprehend his daughters’ emotional needs. He also struggles with anger and substance abuse. The young daughters initially accept his quirks, unsure of what is right, wrong, or appropriate. They gracefully submit to his passion to play pool at the local bar. They agree to ‘surprise’ trips into the wilderness, and are dutifully patient about his beer drinking and pot smoking. Only once, in four visits, does he ask about their mother. Age brings wisdom. As the sisters grow older, compliance gives way to disenchantment.

René Pérez Joglar infuses charisma into the unsympathetic role of Vincette. Joglar, who goes by the name Residente, is a rapper and star of Latinx music. (Perhaps casting a star of Mexican music will make the film more accessible to a Latino audience.) His charming smile can just as quickly shade into the lethal.

Based loosely on the director’s own life, the family dynamic might be relevant to a Latino audience. Spanish portions of the film’s dialogue are not translated or subtitled in English. An English-speaking audience will miss nothing and the decision boosts the film’s authenticity.

One of the affecting themes of In The Summers is that coming of age is not just something that happens in adolescence. Lacorazza underlines the longing and heartache of a father who has escaped his problems far too long, and dramatizes how that emotional distance impacts his children. This nuanced study in domestic malfunction is as universal as it is heartbreaking.

Tim Jackson was an assistant professor of Digital Film and Video for 20 years. His music career in Boston began in the 1970s and includes some 20 groups, recordings, national and international tours, and contributions to film soundtracks. He studied theater and English as an undergraduate, and has also worked helter-skelter as an actor and member of SAG and AFTRA since the 1980s. He has directed three feature documentaries: Chaos and Order: Making American Theater about the American Repertory Theater; Radical Jesters, which profiles the practices of 11 interventionist artists and agit-prop performance groups; When Things Go Wrong: The Robin Lane Story. And two short films: Joan Walsh Anglund: Life in Story and Poem and The American Gurner. He is a member of the Boston Society of Film Critics. You can read more of his work on his blog.