My Summer of Love

Plot synopsis:
On a hot sunny summer day in Yorkshire, Mona (Natalie Press) is a young teenage girl pushing her broken-down motorbike down a hill. While Mona rests in the grass off the road, another teenage girl named Tamsin (Emily Blunt) happens by. She is riding on horseback and chances upon Mona. While walking back to Tamsin's large country house, they introduce themselves and learn that they come from completely opposing background; Tamsin is from an upper middle class family and has recently been suspended from boarding school for being a bad influence; drinking alcohol. Mona, on the other hand, comes from a dysfunctional family, and her brother, Phil (Paddy Considine), who has recently been released from prison, is the only remaining member of her family still alive. Both of the girls seem to regard their lives as mundane.When Mona arrives home, she finds her brother in their mother's former pub, pouring all of the alcohol into the sink. He has undergone an extreme religious transformation during his stint in prison and regards his activity as part of his preparation for a rally for Christian converts, much to Mona's annoyance.That night, Mona meets her lover, Ricky. They have sex in his car, after which he breaks up with her. Mona angrily turns down Ricky's offer to drive her home. The next day, Mona arrives at Tamsin's in order to escape from the Christian rally organised by her brother. The girls begin to bond as they spend the day drinking and smoking while talking about the problems they face in their lives. Their sharing brings to light several of Tamsin's family secrets, such as the fact that Tamsin's sister, Sadie, died as a result of anorexia nervosa.The next day, Tamsin takes Mona to the house where Tamsin claims that her father is cheating on her mother with his secretary. Not only is Tamsin furious because she states that the secretary is blonde with big breasts, but also because the secretary is not very smart. Mona smashes a window of Tamsin's father's car. The girls then flee the scene, after which Mona agrees to spend the night in Tamsin's house.The next day Tamsin purchases an engine for Mona's scooter, after which they drive to a small river to swim. While swimming under a waterfall, the girls share a kiss. The two return to Tamsin's house and Tamsin encourages Mona to try some of her old dresses. When Mona tries on a long red dress, Tamsin states that it used to belong to her sister, and tearfully recounts the process of watching Sadie die. She also tells Mona that she is beautiful in the dress.Later on, the two are in the back garden, with Tamsin playing Camille Saint-Saëns's cello solo Le Cygne from Le Carnaval des Animaux and Mona dancing The Dying Swan to it. Mona falls to the ground at the end of the piece, and Tamsin kisses her passionately. Later that night, the two girls have sex for the first time in Tamsin's bed, but are briefly interrupted by Phil, who has come to Tamsin's house to look for Mona.The next day, Phil finds the girls sunbathing, Tamsin clearly topless. She does not cover herself and merely gazes at him as he invites the girls to his rally, in which he wants to erect a large cross on the hill next to their village. Although Mona is reluctant to go, Tamsin encourages her, and the two join the born-again Christians on their way up the hill. Tamsin behaves as if immediately attracted to Phil during the course of the rally.Later on, Mona and Tamsin explore Sadie's room and find a bag of magic mushrooms hidden inside a dollhouse. They take the psychedelic compounds together. Later that day, feeling the effects of the mushrooms, Mona and Tamsin go to a dance hall where they behave intimately, disturbing the mostly older patrons and prompting the bouncer to kick them out. They then go back to the river where they first kissed and declare their eternal love to each other, solemnly swearing that they would kill each other if one should leave the other, with Mona adding that she would kill herself. They again have sex.In the morning, Tamsin wakes by the river cold and shivering, and the girls leave to have breakfast at Tamsin's house. Phil then arrives at Tamsin's house searching for Mona, whereupon Tamsin pretends to seduce him. He reacts and attempts to kiss her, but she laughs him off insultingly, sparking his fury and violence, as he grabs Tamsin by the neck in a fit of anger. He proceeds to take Mona home and lock her room, forbidding her to see Tamsin. Mona draws a picture of Tamsin on the wall. Mona fakes suicide and Phil comes in to rescue her, whereupon Mona mocks Phil's belief in the devil and he hits her across the face. Something in Phil snaps and he reverts back to his violent behavior, kicking the born-again Christians out of the former pub, while Mona leaves the pub determined to start a new life with Tamsin.However, when Mona arrives at Tamsin's estate, she discovers that Tamsin is preparing to return to boarding school (she was never expelled or suspended from school in the first place). Mona also belatedly uncovers Tamsin's deception: Tamsin's parents were never divorced for they were only away on vacation; then, while leaving, she runs into Tamsin's older sister, Sadie, whose top Mona is wearing. Sadie is in fact alive, and did not die of an eating disorder; this was just a lie fed to Mona as part of Tamsin's idea of summer fun. Mona, feeling disgusted and dejected by the fact that she's been used as summer theatrics, leaves for the girls' special spot at the river.Tamsin finds her there and tells Mona that it should have been clear from the start that she had to return to school, and their relationship was doomed. In explaining why she lied about Sadie's "death", Tamsin tells Mona, "I'm a fantasist, for God's sake." Seemingly forgiving her, Mona slips into the water fully clothed, enticing Tamsin to join her, and the two kiss, re-enacting the earlier kissing scene. As they are kissing, Mona suddenly grabs Tamsin by the throat and pushes her under the water, as if about to fulfill her earlier oath to kill her. Instead she releases her and climbs out of the water. Despite Tamsin's angry shouts, Mona confidently walks away down the road.

Tags: dramatic, romantic, queer

Review:
First of all, the young leads Nathalie Press and Emily Blunt acted superbly; these newcomers are really stunning for the way they movingly played this character drama, showing every sort of emotion a human being may feel.
A pretty simple story of two slightly dysfunctional girls who meet by chance and become drawn to each other, who fall in love through the summer vacation, who have fun together and then, inevitably, part, is brought totally to life by the charismatic performances of the two young leads.
As in 'Last Resort', Russian-born Pavlikovski paints an enticingly skewed picture of Britain that rings true in spite of its aberrence; and gets good performances out of his cast, especially Paddy Considine as the brother of one of the girls, who could certainly have used more screen-time, though his co-stars Nathalie Press and Emily Blunt are also good.
The film steers clear of cliché, and has some dryly funny dialogue, but what it lacks is a sense of time as a continuum: it feels like a semi-random sampling of its characters' lives, and although there is a clear plot it's hidden in the background, apparent only later.
Distinctive, and well-worth watching, 'My Summer of Love' isn't quite a great film; but it is an interesting effort from a director committed to representing life in the ways that Hollywood never does..
It's the kind of thing you always see in lesbian films, like the girl needs an "excuse" to find love with another woman.
I enjoyed this film as it asks questions about life, Society and Religion in an unconventional Way. Mona and Tam fall in love one summer.Press plays Mona, bored to tears with life in provincial Yorkshire, and especially bored with her brother Phil (Paddy Considine) who is a reformed violent criminal and born-again Christian now righteously pouring away the stocks of booze in the pub owned by their late parents, and re-purposing this place of sin as a prayer center.
It had the unfortunate circumstance of going up against Vera Drake, else it might have taken every British and European award for 2004.Yes, there is a tender and passionate love affair between Emily Blunt (The Devil Wears Prada), in only her second film, and Nathalie Press (who we will see this year in Brontë).
But the film is so much more.They don't spend all their time making love; they do have some fun, and it's really funny.There is the brother, played by Paddy Considine (Hot Fuzz), who found Jesus in prison (don't they all?) and is concerned for his sister's soul.
Beautifully acted and gorgeously filmed, this movie had all the makings of a great combination coming-of-age story slash love story, but it encountered the same problem so many other almost-great movies (Rain Man, anyone?) have: it has no ending...it just...stops.
Still worth your time, for the fantastic performances of Emily Blunt (remember that name!!) and the always reliable Paddy Considine, not to mention the lead (I forgot her name), but it just leaves such a bad taste in your mouth when a movie comes this close to being great..
"My Summer of Love" feels like a fabricated movie that is all too aware of its own style, which makes the movie feel forced and too artificially made at certain moments.The story and premise are good enough.
Beyond this, though, the film is strictly pedestrian, a teasing, somewhat low-keyed delineation of a love affair that doesn't have a chance in hell.The movie is set in a dreadfully quaint British hamlet tucked into a picturesque valley, the kind of place where nothing ever happens, where boredom begins crushing the restless like the gravity on Jupiter.
Mona (Nathalie Press), a red-head who looks like she could be Cate Blanchett's younger sister, lives here with her brother Phil (Paddy Considine), an ex-con; they used to run a pub, The Swan, but Phil has been on a Jesus kick since getting out of jail, and has decided to convert the place into a temple for him and his bible-thumping friends.
Tamsin is just as bored as Mona is; the two start hanging out together, casually, Tamsin teaching Mona about Nietzsche and Edith Piaf, and Mona showing Tamsin her favorite places out in the woods, but their relationship gets progressively more serious, and weirder, until reality threatens to intervene.Director Pawil Pawlikowski knows what his movie is about, knows who his characters are and how they feel about each other, but is never able to put all this across with any real conviction.
Mona and Tamsin could easily be the heroines of Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures, a movie that takes you deep inside a strange, doomed relationship, much deeper than My Summer of Love with its fashion-spread visuals, its lukewarm character dynamic.
It seems to want to be hallucinatory - there are a few crazy angles in it, and moments of dreaminess - but like everything else in the picture this hallucinogenic quality never gets beyond the nascent stage, never comes to fruition.The two lead actresses, Nathalie Press and Emily Blunt, are a pair of interesting physical specimens at least, and project a certain oddness that the director never manages to pick up and run with.
This short and often shifty ride that pops back and forth i.e. from romance to thriller and from drama to satire, the sense of urgency and provoking irritation of not achieving the freedom, speaks clearly how and when Pawel Pawlikowski; the screenwriter and director, triumphs on his work.The first half of the film basically just sweeps away all the distraction and the introductory formalities of the structure where subconsciously Mona's (Natalie Press) lack of freedom on even an opinion and Tamsin's (Emily Blunt) flight of freedom is jolted down accurately on screen.
My Summer of Love is a Heavenly Creatures meets Thirteen type movie about two girls: Mona, a bold red head; and Tamsin, a beautiful brunette with a wild imagination.
However, emotions between the three main characters, played by Emily Blunt, Natalie Press, and Paddy Considine, soon spin out of control.The one thing that was unclear to me in this movie was the age of the two girls.
The Yorkshire Moors gave us the Bronte sisters with all their creativity and their repression; today the closest two teen girls, plain Mona and hot Tamsin, come to creativity is making out with each other, but the repression still hangs about.In "My Summer of Love," modern fundamentalist Christianity, embraced with total devotion by Mona's brother, is the repressive influence threatening to take Mona's freedom and her brother's sanity.
I wasn't thrilled with the plot overall and the ending could have been handled better.But because of the great lead performances, and the nice feel of summer the film gives you, I think it is a worthy watch.
Yet another GLBT movie to hit our shores (somehow I think lesbian love films make it here more frequently than gay ones?), this movie, based on a novel written by Helen Cross, and directed by Pawel Pawlikowski, has won the BAFTA award for Best British Film, amongst other movie awards.The protagonist is Mona (Nathalie Press), a young orphaned girl on the verge of losing her brother Phil (Paddy Considine) to his rediscovery of Christianity.
The two girls and the brother are well drawn and the interactions and differences between them always keep you interested.If you are the sort of person who likes films about people rather than action and you have a couple of hours spare get this on DVD, you won't be disappointed.
Phil isn't happy with Mona spending all her time with Tamsin, he's trying to save her wanting her to find Jesus.This is great quiet look and love and friendship.
Paddy Considine as Phil plays it simple and it works to great extent.This is a great film about love, making it so much better than all those predicable romantic comedies that are so clichéd, while this you never know whats going to happen next..
At the beginning of the titular summer in a Yorkshire town, Mona (Natalie Press) hasn't a lot to look forward to: Her partner in carnal relations (as we see later in the film, it won't do to call him a boyfriend) has thrown her off, and her brother (the increasingly reliable Paddy Considine, who also has a nice role in Cinderella Man) has come out of prison born-again; we first see him emptying liquor bottles in the pub he and Mona inherited from their parents, the better to convert the spot into a Christian meeting place.
Suddenly you doubt everything you've seen and experienced just like Mona does.There are only three main actors in this movie and honestly you don't even realize it because of the phenomenal jobs they all do, especially Blunt who pulls off being both deceptive and genuine at the same time (sometimes in the same scene!) and Press who blew me away completely by conveying her emotions and feelings generally with such subtlety (simple looks, body language, etc.) that you didn't need any lines at all at times to know exactly where she was emotionally.
And Pawlikowski's magical visual story telling approach creates a movie that's beautiful to watch and whose emotions seep through to the audience through the images themselves.The relationship dynamic between Mona and Tamsin is well conceived.
My Summer of Love brings the subject of girl-girl romance in a straight forward manner, no fanfare, no fireworks, just a series of event that leads those young women to love.In the same way, drama comes around, but every time you expect the scenario to turn right, it turns left (except for one particular instance near the end).
Life is not pretty, romances end, and so does that film.It's an easy movie to watch, and its simplicity makes it a good choice.
The director sourced his films leads from an eight month search of Schools, Universities, and theater groups and found two massive talents in Natalie Press - Mona, and Emily Blunt - Tamsin.
The only other character of consequence in what is very much a two-hander is Mona's brother (Paddy Considine) who has suddenly found God in a big way, making him totally opposed to the unlikely friendship and then love between the two young girls.This erotic tale of manipulation and deception - loosely based on a novel by Helen Cross - was both directed and co-written by Paweł Pawlikowski about whom we have heard surprisingly little since.
Both movies are about two unhappy, bored teenage girls (played here by Emily Blunt and Natalie Press) from wildly different backgrounds who meet and quickly form an intense bond because of their sense of humor and intelligence, and their lack of similarity to those around them.And also like Heavenly Creatures, the threat of the two girls being separated spurs some rather dark consequences for several people.
Ambiguous or open-ended stories are fine, but Summer of Love veered towards frustration once or twice.The best parts of the movie were Emily Blunt, Natalie Press, and Paddy Considine.
Polish born director Pawel Pawlikowski shoots the film's location with a warm and misleadingly welcoming glare, complimenting the sorts of emotions I think Mona goes through when she first meets Tamsin and eventually comes to recognise the friendship between them.
When a kiss ensures at a local secluded spring amidst the sunny glare, Mona tries on a number of different dresses once again back at the house until she can find the right one, a metaphorical sequence capturing her attempts in finding a 'new' her, as her changing persona becomes more apparent.My Summer of Love captures the sense of undergoing transition wonderfully, an identifying of an old way of life or belief then the systematic moving on and away from it.
This film perhaps, is one of the best of 2004.Mona (Natalie Press) meets a girl very similar to herself named Tasmin (Emily Blunt) and begin to bond as they learn how each others' past are very much the same.
On the whole this movie is truly gripping, and intensity grows slowly as its slowly progresses, capable of attracting the viewer from the beginning, when you get the perception that some intimacy and something emotionally and physically strong will emerge from the initial encounter and that this summer will turn out into an unforgettable experience of life.Really outstanding the performances offered by the young actresses, Emily Blunt as the girl able to naturally seduce through her glance and languid refinement, Natalie Press as the natural, never demanding and never pretending girl, ready to be attracted by anything sounding vaguely unfamiliar.
In the end, you need some time to rationalize and find a more definite meaning, probably because the contrast between soft, dream-like images and some crueler moments (mainly those between Mona and his brother) makes you feel a little confused and bewildered, but I think the movie deserves this time of reflection and understanding..
This movie is about lies and half-truths, but it does not start out that way.The film revolves around Natalie Press' Mona and her interactions with her born again brother Phil (Paddy Considine) and the suspended boarding school, rich girl Tamsin (Emily Blunt).
My Summer of Love, where as not as shocking as other British films, still delivers a few question marks to the youth in society in this day and age.Nathalie Press stars as Mona; a young girl troubled with her family life, seeks comfort in the arms of another young girl, fantasist Tamsin, and played by Emily Blunt (Devil wears Prada).A very slow moving drama, this British film brings many ideas to the audience with issues of religion, sexual orientation and loyalty encoded.Whereas the acting isn't perfect, the direction and writing is.
However what's perhaps more controversial is the drug abuse and violence which is quite remarkable.The religious iconography is also capturing a trend which seems to be dying out in Britain, and Mona's take on religion and her brother seems to capture a popular view in youth culture today.The ending is especially interesting as it makes the viewer ask many questions about the future.It's a wonderful slow moving drama that engages the audience through mysterious personalities and "open your mind" scenes.
"My Summer of Love" is a sensual warning that idle hands are the devil's playmate.Director and book co-adapter Pawel Pawlikowski is very much a visual artist with repeating motifs of watching eyes as he imagines "Heavenly Creatures" set in a sunny, languid Yorkshire using a similar dreamy pictorial lens and aural envelope as Todd Solondz.Where American art house films tend to see young women on the cusp of adulthood more as victims as they experiment with their sexual power, such as in "Blue Car," or in commercial fare as innocents, like "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants," and a spate of recent non-American directors have shown their impact on men, such as in "À Tout de Suite (Right Now)," "La Petite Lili," and "The Holy Girl (La Niña santa)," this film well captures the kind of intense relationship between young women Carroll Smith-Rosenberg described in "Disorderly Conduct: Visions of Gender in Victorian America" for which emotionally distant men are mere side adventures and experiments.The camera frequently rests on verdant undulating hills as pierced by obvious phallic symbols of a singular smoke stack and then a cross laboriously erected by a brother of one of the girls to literally save her soul, though Pawlikowski goes a bit overboard using seduction symbols like a horse, swan, cello and Edith Piaf.The initially theatrical contrivance of the central freckle-faced, living-over-the-pub lonely lass buffeted between her born again brother and a bored mansion-on-the-hill, Nietzsche-spouting temptress ("They say I'm a bad influence") actually comes together well in the climax as their inner truths are exposed to free her to find her own way and Nathalie Press gives her real flashes of personality.Ryszard Lenczewski's beautiful cinematography is bleached out sun-drenched or candle-lit that very effectively crosses the girls' internal lives and fantasies with their every day reality.The primarily Goldfrapp soundtrack adds to the libidinous and threatening moodiness of the atmosphere..
One of the things playing under the surface of "My Summer of Love" is the disparity in class and privilege between Mona and Tamsin.
As a rich girl bored and with nothing to do, Tamsin accepts Mona as a pretty object, but we know from the beginning nothing is going to come about their love for one another.
Emily Blunt, a beautiful young actress is perfect as Tamsin, a manipulator, who will have Mona believe that she truly cares for her, when in reality, she is only amusing herself while confined to the summer house in the country.
In the search for 'gems of dialogue' some of the scenes would be workshopped beforehand, but with a certain amount of leeway to see what worked when they were actually shot.(Spoilers): The ending of the film leaves quite a few questions, including ones about the nature of the girls' love for each other and how 'real' it was.
This could have been really good.My Summer of Love is a film that I felt certain I would adore but in the end I was completely let down.
There is something very outdated and sort of Miss Marple like about the working class Mona's meeting with beautiful public school girl Tamsin, who is home for the summer.
I give this a 9 and not a 10 because the ending where Mona tries to drown Tamsin was disappointing to me...but it did leave us all with a sense of confusion which I think makes the movie more interesting all in all.
As for Natalie Press and Emily Blunts characters, the storyline among Mona & Tamsin was pretty much dull.
Or is at least one of the girls cruelly playing with the other's emotions?One hot summer in Yorkshire, aimless teenager Mona (Natalie Press) meets a girl of similar age from an upper middle class background, the enigmatic and troublesome Tamsin (Emily Blunt).