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MY SUMMER OF LOVE
Directed by: Pawel Pawlikowski.
Produced by: Tanya Seghatchian & Christopher Collins.
Written by: Pawel Pawlikowski & Michael Wynne,
based on the novel by Helen Cross.
Director of Photography: Ryszard Lenczewski.
Edited by: David Charap.
Music by: Alison Goldfrapp & Will Gregory.
Released by: Focus.
Country of Origin: UK. 87 min. Rated: R.
With: Natalie Press, Emily Blunt & Paddy Considine.

Suspended from school for being a "bad influence on people," freckle-faced, strawberry blond Mona (Natalie Press) meets her match while riding on her motorless moped through the sunburnt Yorkshire countryside. There she encounters the fearless and posh Tamsin (EmilyBlunt), on horseback no less, who's on leave from boarding school. Opposites immediately attract. Both on their own, Mona takes Tamsin up on her offer and lets herself into Tamsin's manor the next day, where Tamsin awaits her. Soon, Mona practically lives with her new best friend (Tamsin's family is missing in action), evading the home she shares with her ex-con, born-again brother Phil (Paddy Considine in a powder keg performance). Besides tying to convert his sister, Phil has emptied all their bottles of alcohol down the drain and turned the family pub into a spiritual center. Mona misses her former brother and joins the judgmental Tamsin in mocking his conversion, both behind his back (Tamsin: "God's dead. This is what's real, the here and now") and to his face. But like Phil, Mona has own her rapture, wholeheartedly idolizing Tamsin, drawing her girlfriend's portrait on her bedroom wall.

My Summer of Love isn't at all timid in its subject matter. It's almost unimaginable that an American filmmaker would take head-on the inflammatory issues of teenage homosexuality and Christian evangelicalism without resorting to comedy (Saved!) as director Pawel Pawlikowski does. The film also doesn't hold back in depicting the arrogance and cruelty of these two teenagers (woe to anyone who is a victim of their pranks). What begins as a boozy and desultory love affair winds down to a powerful and suspenseful finish, and the cinéma vérité cinematography belies what is a well-plotted and crafted script, loosely based on a novel by Helen Cross. And if actress Natalie Press reminds one of Sissy Spacek, both in her looks and in her intense performance, it's no accident. Both Press and Blunt impressively make their film debut. Overall, Summer is much less a coming-out story or social satire than an astute take on role playing. Perhaps what is more subversive is the suggestion that even being in love is a performance. Kent Turner
June 17, 2005