My Summer of Love : Review

My Summer of Love
Cert 18, 86 mins

Pawel Pawlikowski’s follow-up to winning the Carl Forman Award for the Most Promising Newcomer in 2004 certainly lives up to its expectations with his latest film. My Summer of Love, adapted from the novel by Helen Cross, has the captivating allure of the silver screen but all the modern grittiness of a northern small time art film. The film follows two girls relationship of exploratory fascination with each other. The story becomes a journey of self discovery but in a very different way from your usual pseudo art house film. Mona (Nathalie Press) is poor and bitter, Yasmin (Emily Blunt) is rich and sceptical, they meet on the moors, as they strangely trust each other they experience the frustration of their counterparts life and make decisions for the other, with this Pawlikowski brings the absurdity of human behaviour especially that of the passionate. Pawlikowski almost allows you to feel for the characters as you’re tugged through their summer days witnessing obsession, and at some points, something close to love, but he destroys your comfort zone as the end twist invites deception into the equation. This film has plenty to say about the struggle to find faith in a world where nothing can really be believed to be true. If you’re willing to listen, Pawlikowski allows you hear what he has to say about people.