- Anne (played by Léa Drucker) leads a stable life. She is successful in her profession as a respected lawyer. She finds peace in a beautiful Parisian house, where her faithful husband Pierre (Olivier Rabourdin) and two daughters are waiting for her. One day, seventeen-year-old Theo (Samuel Kircher), the man’s son from his previous marriage, moves in with them. The unexpected appearance of the boy disrupts the balance and awakens feelings in the woman that she herself could not have suspected.
- Movie “The Last Summer” from August 30 on Polish cinemas. Watch the trailer!
This time, “the greatest provocateur of contemporary cinema” Catherine Breillat, who in the past managed to cast stars from controversial films in her films, can only provoke a squirm in the seat and a weary yawn. The provocation she has prepared for the audience is sewn with coarse threads, devoid of nuances, even if it is dressed in the costume of an ambitious cinema about manipulation and the clash between truth and lies, breaking taboos.
“The Last Summer” has its hypnotizing shots, but on the one hand it overwhelms with pretentiousness, with artificial-sounding dialogues and grimaces, a kind of theatricality, and on the other hand it puts off with calculation, that imposed from above: “be shocked, viewer”. The main problem is that it is hard to believe in it at all. This is all the more surprising because “The Last Summer” is a remake of a really strong “Queen of Hearts” from 2019, a drama directed by May el-Toukhy. It is simply amazing how different the tone of the same story can be, repeating some of the dialogues and situations. Sometimes lightning, shock, discussion, sometimes “nice pictures” and not much else.
From Scandinavian realities, Catherine Breillat transfers the story to a French well-to-do family. Anne (Léa Drucker) is a respected juvenile lawyer, and her husband Pierre (Olivier Rabourdin) is a businessman on a constant business trip to boring conferences. They have two adorable adopted daughters, Serena and Angela, and live a blissful life in a comfortable Parisian residence. Garden, villa, beautiful!
The summer idyll is shattered by the appearance of Pierre’s 17-year-old son from his first marriage, who has been kept at a distance by his father until now. Théo (Samuel Kircher) – with a lingering gaze and golden curls and great self-confidence – awakens the senses of Anna, who is a bit tired of her erotic life. The woman seduces the boy who has been wounded by life. Against reason and morality, she continues the forbidden romance until it has to come to light, and then…
While in “The Queen of Hearts” the characters and their relationship were accompanied by a whole range of emotions from beginning to end, the erotic fascination was credible and the manipulation sinister, in Breillat’s film we are dealing with a certain imitation. In “The Last Summer” there is no chemistry, no danger, no places where “red lights” explode one after another, but they should. Because it is a romance that should not have happened – due to the age difference and family connections. Otherwise, the elegant cinematography of Jeanne Lapoirie is more suited to a lyrical romance than a story about playing with fire.
The choice of actors is disappointing – there is no spark between them that could initiate the whole situation. Théo is simply a beautiful angel, a delicate cherub, not a rebel, as in “The Queen of Hearts”. The only thing Breillat seems to require from the actor Samuel Kircher – is to be in front of the camera and look deeply into the eyes of Léa Drucker. Yes, the boy is photogenic. He has beautiful eyes.
Drucker has a more difficult task – her heroine has two faces, succumbs to passion, should arouse emotions and they should change during the session. Meanwhile, from the first scene, in which she “interrogates” her client, she is rather unpleasant. The ending of this story – one of several endings, because “The Last Summer” somehow cannot end and throws in at least three scenes that structurally could close the story, is almost caricatured. Here is a desperate Théo banging on the door of the villa with his fists, Anne sleeping upstairs by her husband’s side… Stop, in the name of fighting spoilers, I will not write more. It is a bit embarrassing. The only thing missing from the soundtrack is “November Rain”.
So maybe the “great theme” of Breillat’s cinema – female sexuality, sensuality, the physical needs of a woman? You won’t find that in “The Last Summer” with a candle. The husband prefers a delicate, quiet style in the bedroom, devoid of wildness, but does he really find something different in the embrace of Anne’s young son? “The passionate s…” from “The Last Summer” rather smacks of fantasies from a puritanical grammar school. Compared to “Nymphomaniac”, for example, it’s a film for preschoolers (ok, but don’t show it to children, despite everything! The film is mainly aimed at mature recipients.).
“The Last Summer” is also disappointing in terms of its analysis of the mechanisms of sexual abuse. Not only as a remake of May el-Toukhy’s film, in which the director and her actors captured all the moral, ethical abuses and emotional ambiguities resulting from the situation and skillfully confront the viewer with uncomfortable questions. After such works as “Tár”, “Anatomy of the Fall”, or “Obsession”, regardless of the individual assessment of these films, “The Last Summer” comes across as a trivial fable about an evil stepmother who is quite sexy. Where are the nuances, where are the ambiguities, where is that entanglement, the abyss that is better not to look at, because it might want to look at the viewer? Where? There is none. But the cinematography and eyes are really pretty.
5/10
“The Last Summer” (L’été dernier), dir. Catherine Breillat, Norway, France 2023, distributor: Aurora Films, cinema premiere: August 30, 2024.