My Summer of Love DVD Review:

Teenage crises and puppy love have had their fair share of treatments on the screen in recent years but rarely do they seem so fresh and cliché-free as in this film, which must rank as one of the best British films of the year. The only reservation here is that the director, Pawel Pawlikowski (known also for ‘Last Resort’) is Polish, which may in turn explain why ‘My Summer of Love’ combines the charm and innocence of the adolescent affair it portrays with a distinct and seemingly convention-free perspective.

Young Yorkshire lass Mona (Nathalie Press) is out in the moors one day when she meets horse-riding and posh Tamsin (Emily Blunt) and the two strike up a friendship. Each have family problems which lead them to bond with the other girl; Mona’s brother Paul (Phil Considine) has converted from alcoholism to born-again Christianity, losing his sense of humour and the trust of his sister in the process (their parents are dead). Tamsin has been expelled from school, and her parents avoid each other, mum by taking up acting and dad by having office flings, leaving Tamsin to herself in their country manor. Tamsin is apparently the worldlier of the two, quoting Nietzche and playing Edith Piaf, and squeaking out classical motifs on the cello. Fascinated as she is by her friend, Mona’s comments reveal her to be the cannier one. Asked what she wants to do with her life, she replies, ‘Get married, to a right bastard, churn out a load of kids with mental problems and then wait for menopause…or cancer.’ When Tamsin asks Mona to show her how exactly her incompetent boyfriend made love to her, things take their natural course.

Things get compplicated as Tasmin reveals more about her life and seems to fall for Mona’s brother, Paul offering a kind of vulnerable authenticity which she cannot find in herself and which she sets out to test. While both girls are beguilingly smitten, Mona is the more faithful of the two, and Tamsin’s games turn out to hide truths she hadn’t suspected.

The photography captures lyrical features of the sun-kissed Yorkshire moors that break from the commonplace association of ‘up north’ with grimness and industrial grind; the haunting music of Alison Goldfrapp which hangs like a charm over the film. The dialogue is inventively casual, and the scenes seem (as they are) the result of a willingness to improvise, and the two female leads appear effortless in grasping our attention.

Special features here are few but choice – apart from the trailer, there are four interviews with Considine, Press, Blunt and Pawlikowski. They talk about their approach to and identification with the material, the means of shooting, improvisation and the importance of the location Pawlikowski finally chose. Rather than the usual feast of self-congratulation, this is a quartet of interviews that answers the spectator’s desire to find out about what brought the film together and to life. There are no language features on this DVD.



Dominic Gavin

Focus Features has become known for its original films and the unique visions by the filmmakers. It isn’t surprising that Focus would pick up Pawel Pawlikowski’s My Summer of Love, but not for the reasons you might think. Although all marketing for the film made it seem more about the lesbian relationship, and possible love triangle, the most unique aspects of the film deal more primarily with identity and religion. The issues of the relationship are only relevant in the context of these two topics, and that is what makes My Summer of Love somewhat interesting.

After her brother becomes a born again Christian and turns the family pub into a spiritual center, local girl Mona finds herself with a new interest in escaping her home. She lives with her brother since her parent’s death and no longer feels any connection to him since he has decided to give up the lifestyle she is accustomed to. After she is dumped by a local married man who she is sleeping with, Mona runs across Tamsin, a rich girl who is home for the summer. Tamsin quickly draws Mona into her world of imagination, but it is impossible to know what is real and what is just a game played by a bored prep-school girl. Soon Mona finds her world turned around as the friendship turns into a summer romance as well.

Paddy Considine plays Mona’s brother, which is essentially just a sub-plot to the story of the two girls, but in many ways is much more compelling. Although he has given up drinking and closed down the bar, Mona believes that he is not being true to his identity. She thinks that he is faking it, and Tamsin makes it her personal goal to prove this as well. Whether or not he truly does believe the things that he says the entire film is never answered, but it is definitely questioned. Considine does a great job making the role believable as well as questionable.

The DVD is quite basic, and although the menus are well done and the cover art is quite fitting for the mood of the film, it just seems as though the film was rushed onto DVD without much attention. It seems as though attention was focused on other projects, which have more chance of obtaining a wide audience.

Ryan Izay