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MY
SUMMER OF LOVE
6/10
UK
2004 : Pawel PAWLIKOWSKI : 86 mins
I yield to
no-one in my admiration for writer-director Pawlikowski's Last
Resort (2000), one of the very few truly outstanding British films
from the last decade. So my expectations were very high for his followup
third feature My Summer of Love, boosted by strong advance word
before its Edinburgh Film Festival world premiere. Word was that Pawlikowski
already had one hand on the prestigious Michael Powell Prize for best
British feature. And word, in this case, proved a prescient judge: My
Summer of Love duly won the prize, on the back of what seemed to be
uniformly positive reviews in the Scottish press.
There's obviously
much to like in this very small-scale tale of teenage lesbian romance,
unfolding over the course of one hot, hazy summer in an unspecified (west?)
Yorkshire valley. The performances by Nathalie Press - as working-class
Lisa, aka "Mona" - and Emily Blunt - as the posher, more affluent
Tamsin - are sensitive and accurate, while Last Resort's Paddy
Considine makes his usual strong impression as Lisa's born-again-Christian
brother Phil. Ryszard Lenczewski's cinematography is suitably dreamy,
backed up by evocative music from Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory. All
in all a promising package, full of talented contributions, and one that's
clearly pleased both critics and audiences.
 But
I just didn't buy it. Most obviously, Press and Blunt look much older
than their schoolgirl characters' sixteen years - perhaps a ploy to avoid
possible accusations of presenting an inappropriately 'underage' relationship.
There are, of course, plenty of 16-year-old girls who, like this pair,
could easily pass for 10 years older. And perhaps if the rest of the story
rang true, this aspect wouldn't even register. Trouble is, there's very
little in My Summer of Love that doesn't seem slightly but
distractingly false.
Before seeing
the film I'd been aware that it was based on a novel - and as the story
took shape I got the distinct impression that the source material had
been written decades ago. It turns out that Helen Cross's book was published
as recently as 2001, but is set during the mid-80s Miners' Strike. This
perhaps explains the lack of mobile phones or references to the internet
in a screenplay (co-written with Michael Wynne) about teenage girls. Cross's
novel is apparently very different from this film (which is as it should
be) - Pawlikowski jettisoned a serial-killer subplot, and the character
of Phil is entirely their invention.
But while
Phil's evangelical actions might have fit in with the original 1980s timeframe,
they sit awkwardly in a 2003 setting: this area of Yorkshire would almost
certainly be much more multicultural than the all-white enclave of Pawlikowski's
film, and given current socio-political considerations the erection of
a huge, seemingly permanent cross on a hillside would be at best ignorant,
at worst crassly provocative. And what are we to make of Phil's stated
intention to "claim this valley back." From what? From whom?
The film's
supporters would no doubt counter that such a literal approach to what
has been described as a "fairy tale love story". But even if
taken on such hermetic terms, the central relationship always feels like
more of a writer's schematic conception than a convincing, organic development.
Hippyish Tamsin in particular comes across like something from the early
seventies, asking Lisa "Have you read Nietzsche" and proclaiming
"God's dead." Despite the best efforts of Blunt and Press (and,
indeed, Considine), the dialogue they speak and the situations in which
they find themselves ring just a bit second-hand, a bit phoney-baloney:
even the naming of Mona, she being a 'moaner' whose real name is Lisa
('Mona Lisa'), smacks of cute, implausible contrivance.
The plot's
final twist is notably unsatisfying, shitting as it does on the film's
one sympathetic character - after a moment of cheap melodrama the picture
then dribbles quickly away, the numerous positive aspects fading in the
memory until only the nagging objections remain. In retrospect, the blandly
generic title fits the material all too well - competently if over-conventionally
handled by Pawlikowski, My Summer of Love feels like a predictable
confection most suitable for teenage girls, but lacking the resonance,
depth, originality and, most important of all, the believability that
would make it cross over to general audiences. The Michael Powell judges
clearly disagreed - but to award this film such a prize in a field that
also included Dead Man's
Shoes and Process
was, to this viewer at least, a nonsense.
13th September,
2004
(seen 25th August : Cameo Edinburgh : press show - Edinburgh
Film Festival)
click
HERE for our full coverage of the 58th Edinburgh Film Festival
by Neil
Young
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