Review of My Summer of Love (2005) by Cory T — 19 Jul 2008

"Flee the evil desires of youth, and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace..." - 2 Timothy 2:22.

In an effort to emphasis the utilization of irony in this film, I thought it appropriate to use a Biblical quotation not too-distantly referenced at the heart of this picture. When I first saw this film over two years ago, I appreciated it, but wasn't completely sold that I understood its intentions. One of the most wonderful elements of the cinema is how it remains constant; it is we who change and learn.

This film is perfect. Not for any showy camera work or excessive over-acting, but for its simplicity, aggressive subtlety, and balancing the fragile highwire between confused sexuality and the sacrilegious.

Natalie Press gives the film's most heartfelt performance as Mona, but this is not a detraction from Emily Blunt's work. Blunt is, without question, one of the most beautiful and underrated actors working today, and she plays this character exactly as it should have been: manipulative, sensual, quietly disturbed. Her character knows too much about the world, but has yet to have experienced enough of it for herself to soundly conclude much of anything. She hates this; she feels suffocated by her life that is too easy, too prewritten. She drinks excessively- for a teenager- and can readily explain the tragedy of Edith Piaf, eluding that she respects Piaf, not for her musical contributions, but that she was allegedly able to murder three husbands and never go to prison. Why? Because crimes of passion are forgiven. The idea of such a life brings Tamsin a sadistic sense of possibility. She understands that Mona is in need of a companion, and she is intrigued and bored enough to take on the challenge.

Mona is meandering through life, with no parental guidance and a well-intentioned older brother who recently became "washed in the Blood," she feels just as trapped as Tamsin, but in a more literal sense. Mona probably would have eventually turned her life to Christ through her brother, had Tamsin not invaded her too-permeable mind with the philosophies of Neitzsche and Freud.

Their friendship becomes intense, intimate, and sexual, unsurprisingly echoing homage to Peter Jackson's masterpiece of unhinged adolescent obsession, "Heavenly Creatures." The difference here, besides that "Creatures" is based on a true story, is that it focused more directly on the intensity of the girl's relationship, with the consequences being an afterthought to be regretted. With "My Summer of Love," the girls see the other as an excessory of need for their own selfish intentions and it soon becomes a battle of wits, though only one of them seems to be aware of this.

Explaining the final course of events would be a loss to those who have not seen this, for it is not what exactly happens but why. There is a moment towards the very end when one of the girls (I won't say who) calls the other a "f*cking selfish bitch!" and then stops, looks down, and everything seems to fall into place psychologically. At that moment, both girls realize something they will never forget and, more than anything, it really was a summer of love.

And hatred.

And manipulative pain.