Noted 4.5 out of 5 … it's simply the best film of 2025 and it has just been released!

Garden of summer (The Friends), staged by the late Shinji Sōmai in 1994, was released for the first time in French theaters last Wednesday (in restored version). This dramatic and poetic comedy, on the relationship between three children and an elderly person, was particularly well received by the press, since its average is 4.5 out of 5. It is even, for the moment, the best film of 2025, exceeding The Brutalist (4,3 out of 5) …

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What is it talking about?

During their long holidays, in a kobe crushed with heat, three young friends in search of adventures question death and gradually become passionate about the garden abandoned by a hermit that fascinates them. They set out to renovate his dilapidated house for him. Little by little, the three boys and the old man befriend. This summer garden will be their playground for an unforgettable summer.

What the press thinks:

According to the world:

“Souls reservoir, a source of wonder, it is also from him that the final momentum of poetry of the film also, placing it in extremis under the auspices of the tale. These tales which, from the territories of childhood, teach us to tame death.” By Ma. Mt. – 5/5

According to the film:

“Each gesture seems to be seized in its most true momentum, thanks to a miraculous direction of young actors in Kore-EDA, as if the filmmaker had melted in their summer. Summer garden is as much an ode to the carelessness of youth as to the wisdom of the elders.” By Adrien Roche – 5/5

According to Liberation:

“In a splendid film restored in 4K more than thirty years after its release, the Japanese filmmaker unjustly unknown, delicately probe the morbid curiosity of three kids.” By Nathalie Dray – 5/5

According to Critikat.com:

“The beauty of a summer garden lies in this way of never opposing the imagination to the real, but rather making it the vector of an exploration in which children test the materiality of the world.” By Robin Vaz – 4/5

Depending on the point:

“A delicate, poetic and bright work.” By writing – 4/5

According to the cinema sheets:

“Sômai films with enchanting lightness and crazy colors the simple, serious and joyful story of three adventurous mouflets, an old taciturn man, and butterflies that resuscitate.” By Gaël Reyre – 4/5

According to Télérama:

“At the same time euphoric, whimsical and deeply melancholy, this summer garden flowers on subtle lands close to the cinema of a more famous compatriot in our regions, Hirokazu Kore-Eda, this other goldsmith of childhood.” By Cécile Mury – 4/5

According to first:

“There follows an initiatory story of a bright, poignant but never tearful poetry, around the acceptance of the death of these kids who will never forget this enchanted summer parenthesis.” By Thierry Chèze – 4/5