Last Summer

Last Summer, the new film from Catherine Breilat, is based on the 2019 Danish film, Queen of Hearts. The result is a film that takes what Brielat is known for and subdues it. This is not exactly the PG13 version of her work but is more akin to the soft R as opposed to the unrated cut that only select independent theatres will show. In other words, where is the real? This is a director who has a reputation for shock value, but who in reality digs deep for raw emotions. She almost finds it, again, in this slight misfire of a film.

 Concerning the affair between a fifty-something lawyer and her seventeen-year-old stepson, the film could be bold and passionate. It could make you angry or think about important ideas. Instead, the film decides to mistime, and therefore, misstructure, the endeavor. It is a film that needed an editor, not for length, but form, and a script that settled on quick and easy outs, except when it thought it was doing otherwise. The result is a film of missed opportunities. Some scenes work, and some scenes most definitely do not, and it is those which are most disappointing, because even if only a couple of them had landed, the film could have been a masterpiece. Instead, it aims for but does not achieve the heights of works like Call Me By Your Name, The End of the Affair or Unfaithful.

Courtesy Janus Films

While the performances are solid, nobody in particular stands out, except perhaps Lea Drucker, as Anne, the cheating wife. This is not the most convincing or sympathetic character, and yet Drucker imbues her part with a certain steely resolve that is often undone by animal desires, and who has no problem lying and throwing others to the wolves in order to save herself. Samuel Kircher, who plays the stepson, Theo, never quite fully embodies his part. Perhaps that is to point out how shallow Theo is, how unformed as a person he is, yet there needed to be more heft to the character. Kircher likely has a nice career ahead of him and this is a good start, but it is not a brilliant one. Oliver Rabourdin, as Theo’s father, and Anne’s husband, Pierre, gets the most thankless part. He is the doughy, financially scandalized, distant husband and father who is all too easily manipulated by his loved ones.

 In the course of the films near one hour and forty-five-minute run time, we never really get to know these characters as well as Breilat seems to believe we do. Drucker, as Anne, accomplishes minor miracles by managing to give Anne something of a tangible inner life. Even here, her moments are what she plays, more than what is written. There are awkward sex scenes-seriously, has nobody heard of foreplay and does nobody understand the pain such a lack of foreplay might give a woman? -that took this viewer out of the scenes in question. There is supposed to be a commentary on detachment and a thematic, dramatic through line. Instead, the way it is presented creates issues of observation. In this, Breilat has failed to create a convincing world, as director.

 The film ultimately has no payoff, emotional or otherwise. By the end of the film, you will not care about a single one of the characters or what happens to them. And yet, the film is not bad, and does not lack anything to recommend it. There is a better film to be had, here, if the director had been bolder and more assured, and the script a little smarter and incisive. Instead, we have a film that pretends at what it thinks it is, and the result is likely going to be a very frustrating experience for some viewers.

LAST SUMMER is now playing in limited theaters.