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Review:

Its a cruel summer indeed. My Summer of Love stands as almost a scornful swipe against its title. Writer-director Pawel Pawlikowski shows the impudence of being that age when romance is almost as grave as life and death and important enough to be swept away in a tide of hormones and irrationality. In a small idyllic village, just north of England, a snapshot of an intoxicating and sultry femme relationship between a nave native and a worldly, cultured out-of-towner starts to bloom just as the hillside flowers start to.

Seductive and sensual, Pawlikowskis naturalist tones and earthy colours complement the summers languorous transience. Class warfare, religious transgressions and misandry bubble below the surface but strong performances from each of its main cast give a trenchant sense of knowing of painful adolescence to the film during a fateful event of a young girls life.

Gravelly voiced, booze-guzzling young Mona (Nathalie Press) craves for a distraction this season. Her brother, Phil (Paddy Considine) is an ex-convict, born-again Christian seeking emotional refuge in the towns sect of charismatic Christians. When we first meet him, he drains the bottles of alcohol, intent on making their bar a new haven for his religious congregations. Naturally, Mona spends more time with the girl she met during a balmy afternoon on the grassy knolls. Almost chivalrously plucking her out of the dense reality she faces during the summer, Tamsin (Emily Blunt) strides up to her on a white horse and introduces her to a different life.

We dont know every detail in their lives, except what they tell us. But behind their silence and pensive smiles, they hide their fair share of hurt. Having nothing in common except plenty of time, contempt for the lack of parental figures and a growing curiosity of each other, they give themselves to the heat of the moment. Perhaps they are drawn together by default, as we dont see anyone their age about town. It just goes to show how self-contained their world is when they are together. The hypnotic relationship breezes by with no concept of time. Only when outside factors start to come knocking do these girls find out how tenuous their ad hoc affair actually is.

Phils eventual involvement is unsettling, in a good way. Although a mere bystander to the girls, he proves to be the most intriguing character. Considine strikes an unnerving balance between brute and a man in deep denial, often grounding the films buoyant mood. He anchors himself to Mona, both realising they only have one another and just as afraid being alone. Phil finds himself drawn towards religion as Mona finds herself drifting towards Tamsin.

Blunt is remarkably restraint as the boarding school troublemaker and wayward patrician. Defiantly decadent in her conceit, Tamsin deigns about the neighbourhood with Mona. In a loose assembly of scenes showing their activities during the summer, theres a sense of discovery within the physical and emotional blossoming of Mona. Her inward struggles and resignation to a life paved with banalities and dull expectations are slowly put on the backburner whenever shes with the girl she knows can never stay with her. A hypnotic film. Not so much about growing up, as it is about living young.

4/5