My Summer of Love
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Movie Reviews of My Summer of Love
Movie Review: Young love--nothing sweet about it.
Summary: 5 Stars
Mona is crazy with boredom in her tiny village and overcome by the new distance between Phil, her born-again brother, and herself. The mumblings of Phil's prayer meetings saturate the walls of The Swan, the old family pub where she and her brother live alone. Mona pushes herself on an old motorless bike down the neighboring hills. Lying by the side of the road, in the grass, seemingly injured, with her bike cast of to one side, she is found by a dark haired girl on a beautifully groomed horse. From her saddle, the girl asks if Mona's injured. "Nah, just resting," Mona explains, barely raising her head. The simplicity of the answer piques the girl's curiosity, and after introducing herself, Tamsin invites Mona to visit her at the manor where she lives. After a breakup with a married boyfriend, and some very depressing car sex, Mona decides to take Tamsin up on her offer.
"I'm home for the summer. I was kicked out. They told my mother I'm a bad influence on people," says Tamsin, eyeing Mona, with the hint of a game in her eye. Playing lady of the manor, she gives Mona a whirling and off-handed tour of her mansion, accompanied by melodramatic schoolgirl explanations of Nietzche and other philosophers. In response to Mona's sad life story--no father, a mother killed by cancer, and her born-again brother--Tamsin offers up her sister, Sadie, who has recently died from annorexia. The girls' reactions are marked. Tamsin offers no solace for Mona's loss, a seeming shrug that indicates Mona's dreary life is to be expected of a villager, while upon hearing of Sadie, Mona's eyes widen and she gasps a genuine "I'm sorry." Tamsin just measures the response, contemplating how she will play it. The contrast between the girls is superb. Tamsin's pale skin and hollow eyes, and languid motions, contrasted with Mona's messy auburn hair, strong features, freckled skin, and abrupt energy. Tamsin often comments on music and worldviews she's sure her village friend has never encountered. It's overtly patronizing. Yet Mona is no simpleton, and flings her own equally potent and emotionally honest answers at Tamsin's sly questions. When asked what she's intends to do with herself, she glibly answers something to the effect of: "Work in an abattoir, marry a loser, get pregnant, and pump out a thousand children." Tamsin can only raise an eyebrow, while Mona grins at her grim possibilities. The disparity between their classes is a draw and they both appear appreciate what they see as innate cruelty or strength in the other (Mona's hatred of her brother's Christianity, and Tamsin's cool world view). It's a strange love story of sorts. Or maybe a passion story, since love is a complicated subject within this movie.
Mona is the focal point. As the girls become closer she gives more of herself to the friendship. Her tight fists relax, and she laughs more. Meanwhile the already self-assured Tamsin sees Mona's raw moments of beauty, with a caustic mix of jealousy and admiration in her eyes, coupled with a sense of accomplishment. This is never better revealed then when the girls are alone at the manor and Tamsin flings her gorgeous castoff clothes for Mona to try on. Mona dances clumsily, but uninhibited, in front of the mirror, awed by how pretty the dresses are, and suddenly aware of how pretty she might be. Nathalie Press as Mona and Emily Blunt as Tamsin are wonderful young actors. Their eyes and motions speaking volumes.
Pawel Pawlikowsky has an eye for the dull, and often, depressing beauty of Yorkshire--monochromatic hills of sun bleached wheat, occasionally marred by flowering heather, the dreary majesty of Tamsin's ivy cloaked manor, and the shade drenched woods that provide refuge for Mona. It gives the film a sense of weight. And his treatment of the love between the girls is realistic: curiosity, possession, lust, and cruelty. The dialogue is simple and candid. And the ending has a beautiful brutality. There's nothing sweet about it.
Movie Review: Movie is better than the book
Summary: 5 Stars
From [...].
Movie is better than the book: My Summer of Love
Has anyone seen this movie?? I stumbled on it at 3am on IFC and was completely mesmerized by it. I was packing for a trip home (Yeah, I pack late) and just stopped what I was doing and watched the whole thing.
Emily Blunt is an amazing actress. Stunning and terrifying at the same time. You can't take your eyes off of these girls. The scene with the two girls running down the street with Edith Piaf in the background and even the camera can't keep up with them. It is still one of my favorite shots of all time.
With the back drop of a green Victorian lush mansion and soundtrack of the dulling sounds of insects and dry heat, you are right back to being young and bored during your summer vacation. With that lazy idleness of nothing to do, I am convinced anyone could be seduced into Tamsin's world.
Here is a little blurb:
"A tale of obsession and deception, and the struggle for love and faith in a world where both seem impossible. The film charts the emotional and physical hothouse effects that bloom one summer for two young women: Mona, behind a spiky exterior, hides an untapped intelligence and a yearning for something beyond the emptiness of her daily life; Tamsin is well-educated, spoiled and cynical. Complete opposites, each is wary of the other's differences when they first meet, but this coolness soon melts into mutual fascination, amusement and attraction. Adding volatility is Mona's older brother Phil, who has renounced his criminal past for religious fervor - which he tries to impose upon his sister. Mona, however, is experiencing her own rapture. "We must never be parted," Tamsin intones to Mona but can Mona completely trust her?" (Focus Features)
I was left with such a strange feeling when I went to bed (at 5am). I forgot what it was like to have those magically intense and boring summers where everything can go so right and so wrong all at once.
After falling in love with the film, I picked up the book was so disappointed that I couldn't back to that place. Helen Cross' novel has much more drawn out plot with many characters and a sub-plot involving a missing girl.
Ha...Well Pawel Pawlikowski (the film's director) didn't care much for all of that. He had only used Cross' novel as a blue print for the film and only had a script that contained 35 pages and he fleshed out the story as he filmed. Completely leaving out most of the characters and a sub-plot about the missing girl.
I'm glad I read the book. Was a little disappointed in it but I also felt very optimistic that while the reputation for adaptations can be unfavorable, I am excited to see directors (and actors for that matter) are able (in some instances) to modify the material they are given and work it to their advantage.
Anyway...Go see the movie! Let me know what you think!
Movie Review: the dreamer and the cynic
Summary: 5 Stars
In recent years there has been a crop of small films that recall those great small films of the early to mid-70's. Into the Wild (2007) and Wendy and Lucy (2008) are prime examples of this phenomenon, but My Summer of Love (2004) might be the most interesting. It certainly leaves a lasting impression. Really two things leave a lasting impression: the bleak but beautiful Yorkshire valley (which serves as a kind of refuge for two wild creatures that refuse to be contained by social mores/norms) and Emily Blunt's performance (which to this day remains her signature role).
My favorite films from the 70's were the small films that shunned conventional narrative techniques and celebrated the psychological states of individuals who also shunned convention. I am thinking of Barbet Schroeder's More and La Vallee, Antonioni's Zabriskie Point, Altman's Images and Three Women, Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock, and the recently re-released Frank Perry film The Last Summer (1969). These films celebrated little moments of liberation, but they also acknowledged the fleeting nature of liberation, and the cynicism that often rested at the heart of the liberatory impulse. The reason so many of these films were made in the early to mid-seventies was because that was the moment when post WWII, 1950's, and 1960's optimism faded and turned into 1970's skepticism and selfism. In so many of the seventies films dreams of liberation are equated with self-delusion and/or self-destruction. In the 1960's to dream was to awaken to possibility; in the 1970's to dream was to refuse to see the world as it was. My Summer of Love is about two characters: one dreamer, and one cynic. But its also about how these contradictory impulses co-exist within each of us and how we negotiate between the two.
Without giving away too much of the movie's mystery, I'll just say the way Tasmin (played by Emily Blunt) negotiates her own contradictory impulses is fascinating to watch. This is not only a wise and open-eyed study of the divided nature of post-adolescent psychology, but a wise and open-eyed study of the divided nature (and warring impulses) of western psychology.
Highly recommended!
Movie Review: Unpredictable, well-written film
Summary: 5 Stars
Five stars because I could not predict what would happen next, and because none of the main characters were cardboard cut-outs, as in Hollywood films. You can't point to the older brother and say, "Oh, well he's just a religious nut." They are people, and come across as such, with real faults and virtues, understandable and even lovable.
And, that is why the film will never be popular. Things are not spelled out. You have to do more than just sit there watching and absorbing. You have to think as you watch the film. I have noticed that thinking is very unpleasant for most people, and they will do anything to avoid it. Hence they will mark the film low because "it's thin on plot," or "not enough dialogue." Observe carefully, and read the body language and the facial expressions, in addition to hearing the dialogue. Then, you can understand and appreciate this excellent, beautiful, artistic film. Some of the scenes are just flat-out gorgeous, filmed in the countryside. The whole movie is like a vacation to which I wish I was invited.
Also, needless to say, the two lovers in question are gorgeous. I like the Celtic one best because she has the most color, orange and blue. Just watching her face and her body is justification enough for the whole movie. She also has a pulse, unlike her icy cold, Neitzche-admiring, elitist companion who, while pretty, could never be captivating. She just seems immediately dangerous from the get-go. You would not want to leave a pair of sharp scissors around her.
It's not a terribly sexy movie, in terms of flesh or action, and the lovers are naive first-timers, who probably need instruction on "what to do" and "how to do it". But then again, this ain't porn, but a romantic story about love. And it works as such. Very intelligent. Neat take on the whole "religion versus atheism" bag. I think the movie comes out for common sense in the end, embracing the classic British viewpoint that has prevailed since the Puritans were expelled.
Movie Review: stunning
Summary: 5 Stars
My Summer of Love blew me away. I wasn't expecting such an intense movie. The movie is mostly starring Mona.(Natalie Press) Set in an isolated village in northern Yorkshire, Mona is hurt, angry, lost and bored out of her mind. She has no father, her mother has died. She is mourning the "loss" of her brother, Phil, who has done away with his voilent ways and is "born again" Christian.
The first thing I love about this movie is that it is set in a small village. While the scenery is beautiful and charming, as the movie goes along it shows you there really is nothing in a small village.
Mona then meets Tamsin (Emily Blunt), Tamsin is in yorkshire for the summer. Rich, lonely, elegant and dramatic. Mona and Tamsin hang around with eachother, over cigarettes and red wine and french music in Tamsin's stately mansion. Both girls learn they are very much alone, and over the summer form an intense bond that borders on obsession. They say they must never be parted.
The movie is gentle yet intense, very stunning and shocking. I do not percieve it as an "lesbian flick." They were both emotionally needy and turned to eachother because they were hurting inside. I think my summer of love is all about love and whatever way you yourself percieve it. Also with pain and obsession thrown in, too.
Paddy Considine, who plays mona's brother, Phil is also excellent in this movie. He "found" god and gave up his voilent ways only to return to voilence at the end of the movie. This movie truly shows what being in turmoil is.
The music is also excellent and fits the movie perfectly. Soft, whimsicle sounds and an haunting voice that chills me. It is absoulutely beautiful.
This is an open minded movie. I give it five stars. It truly shows the nasty circle of emotional pain. Go see it, it'll make you think.