‘Apparently, I’m a bad influence on people...’
The concept of star-crossed lovers is as old as time itself. It endures because everyone knows that feeling of first love. The intensity of it. The unbearable longing. It’s a difficult thing to capture particularly in a medium as cynical as film. My Summer of Love attempts to bottle the feeling of the first pangs of love and does so in a way that is powerful and memorable…
Tamsin (Emily Blunt) is an upper-class girl who is ignored by her father following the death of her sister from anorexia. Mona (Natalie Press) is a bored working-class girl who lives in a pub with her born-again Christian brother Phil (Paddy Considine). Whilst Tamsin and Mona make for unlikely bedfellows, their shared disillusionment soon blossoms into something more than just friendship.
Adapted from Helen Cross’ novel by director Pawel Pawlikowski, My Summer of Love is a gritty, authentic but powerful treatise on class, gender and young love. It is refreshing to see a same-sex relationship onscreen that isn’t defined by that fact. Instead, Tamsin and Mona’s relationship is presented as perfectly natural – as it should be. Press is a little too stereotypically working-class Yorkshire girl for my tastes but Blunt demonstrates the star-making quality that has translated to a varied and interesting career. Elsewhere, Considine doesn’t have loads to do but he is great as always with the material he is given. Pawlikowski directs the whole thing in a documentary style often using handheld cameras for the more emotional scenes and while this can be disorientating, it is also compelling.
My Summer of Love is an effective character study with a third-act sting that left me reeling as the credits rolled. An underrated film with a great performance from Emily Blunt at its heart. Also, any film that features both Edith Piaf and Goldfrapp is ok by me.