My Summer of Love 2004
My Summer of Love
 |
| My Summer of Love |
As film industry reviewers, we say My Summer of Love is one of our non-favorite movies. Please VOTE!
My Summer of Love is favorite or unfavorite?
The most dangerous thing to want is more.
We'd love to hear your thoughts on this feature film!
About the My Summer of Love 💬
MY SUMMER OF LOVE is the most intoxicating and intriguing romance. From Pawel Pawlikowski, the award-winning director of Last Resort, comes a tale of obsession and deception, and the struggle for love and faith in a world where both seem impossible.
The passionate, droll, and mysterious drama features striking performances from its two lead actresses, both of whom are movie newcomers.
The film vibrantly charts the emotional and physical hothouse effects that bloom one summer for two young women (Natalie Press and Emily Blunt). Mona (played by Ms. Press), behind a spiky exterior, hides an untapped intelligence and a yearning for something beyond the emptiness of her daily life. Tamsin (Ms. Blunt) is well-educated, spoiled, and cynical. As they are complete opposites, each is wary of the other's differences when they first meet, but this coolness soon melts into mutual fascination, amusement, and attraction. Adding further volatility is Mona's older brother Phil (Paddy Considine), who has renounced his criminal past for religious fervor - which he tries to impose upon his sister. Mona, however, is experiencing her own rapture. ''We must never be parted,'' Tamsin intones to Mona... but can Mona completely trust her?
The film is inspired by the novel ''My Summer of Love'' by Helen Cross.
It had these two great characters who immediately engaged me - Mona and Tamsin. I especially loved Mona. She was just my sort of character - cynical, lyrical, funny, unpredictable, always at odds with the world and with herself.
One other important source was an encounter I had with born-again Christians in 1987, when I was shooting a documentary in Lancashire about an evangelist preacher who was actually trying to plant a cross on top of Pendle Hill - where, famously, some witches were hanged in the 17th Century - to claim it for Christianity. I've never forgotten him and it.
I mainly kept the characters of the two girls. The book was a much busier, more populated affair. I remember Mona had a proper family; a father, a stepmother, a sensible older sister, and an obese stepbrother. Their pub was very lively, very Northern, with a crowd of "characters." There was also a creepy pedophile lusting after Mona, there were two murders, and the whole place was in the grip of the Miners Strike - the year was 1984. Ah, and a murderous Ripper was on the prowl killing young girls and terrorizing the population. None of this survived into the film.
So the novel was much more sociologically specific. lt was also quite plotty. The world in our film is much more spare, almost a little abstract. I wanted to tell the story through images and create a more timeless and elemental landscape, one in which the sort of emotions I'm interested in could occur, where someone can look into another's eyes and get obsessed. What I really wanted to avoid on MY SUMMER OF LOVE was making one of these so-called 'gritty realist' films, which supposedly reflect contemporary Britain or contemporary youth - neither of which interest me very much.
The film was shot in West Yorkshire but the world we created is actually quite abstract; a sort of spiritual no man's land, stripped of contemporary glitter and noise. Whatever subject I tackle I seem to end up in my own world. I was more worried that I was excluding the contemporary political references and full-on class conflict. But to create truthful relationships is perhaps a big enough task.
Both Natalie and Emily were extremely different and very original, which is a rare thing nowadays. They avoid the obvious, and are capable of playing complex and conflicting attitudes. Above all, they had energy, which is key for a movie. When I brought them together for a workshop, I could see them feeding off of each other well, and I knew that this was going to work.
If you wanted to make a film about British teenagers it would be... well, it wouldn't interest me, let's put it like that. They'd be listening to music I hate, watching TV all the time, and talking about Big Brother. I needed to remove it, to get to the essence of adolescence without the paraphernalia of today. In a way, I am arrested in my adolescent emotions, like most of us I think are, so [the film is] very personal, funnily enough, despite it being about two girls. I identify with Mona to an unhealthy degree, so the main thing was to make these teenagers the sort of teenagers I could relate to myself, slightly more timeless and removed from now.
Pawel Pawlikowski
The passionate, droll, and mysterious drama features striking performances from its two lead actresses, both of whom are movie newcomers.
The film vibrantly charts the emotional and physical hothouse effects that bloom one summer for two young women (Natalie Press and Emily Blunt). Mona (played by Ms. Press), behind a spiky exterior, hides an untapped intelligence and a yearning for something beyond the emptiness of her daily life. Tamsin (Ms. Blunt) is well-educated, spoiled, and cynical. As they are complete opposites, each is wary of the other's differences when they first meet, but this coolness soon melts into mutual fascination, amusement, and attraction. Adding further volatility is Mona's older brother Phil (Paddy Considine), who has renounced his criminal past for religious fervor - which he tries to impose upon his sister. Mona, however, is experiencing her own rapture. ''We must never be parted,'' Tamsin intones to Mona... but can Mona completely trust her?
- DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT
The film is inspired by the novel ''My Summer of Love'' by Helen Cross.
It had these two great characters who immediately engaged me - Mona and Tamsin. I especially loved Mona. She was just my sort of character - cynical, lyrical, funny, unpredictable, always at odds with the world and with herself.
One other important source was an encounter I had with born-again Christians in 1987, when I was shooting a documentary in Lancashire about an evangelist preacher who was actually trying to plant a cross on top of Pendle Hill - where, famously, some witches were hanged in the 17th Century - to claim it for Christianity. I've never forgotten him and it.
I mainly kept the characters of the two girls. The book was a much busier, more populated affair. I remember Mona had a proper family; a father, a stepmother, a sensible older sister, and an obese stepbrother. Their pub was very lively, very Northern, with a crowd of "characters." There was also a creepy pedophile lusting after Mona, there were two murders, and the whole place was in the grip of the Miners Strike - the year was 1984. Ah, and a murderous Ripper was on the prowl killing young girls and terrorizing the population. None of this survived into the film.
So the novel was much more sociologically specific. lt was also quite plotty. The world in our film is much more spare, almost a little abstract. I wanted to tell the story through images and create a more timeless and elemental landscape, one in which the sort of emotions I'm interested in could occur, where someone can look into another's eyes and get obsessed. What I really wanted to avoid on MY SUMMER OF LOVE was making one of these so-called 'gritty realist' films, which supposedly reflect contemporary Britain or contemporary youth - neither of which interest me very much.
The film was shot in West Yorkshire but the world we created is actually quite abstract; a sort of spiritual no man's land, stripped of contemporary glitter and noise. Whatever subject I tackle I seem to end up in my own world. I was more worried that I was excluding the contemporary political references and full-on class conflict. But to create truthful relationships is perhaps a big enough task.
Both Natalie and Emily were extremely different and very original, which is a rare thing nowadays. They avoid the obvious, and are capable of playing complex and conflicting attitudes. Above all, they had energy, which is key for a movie. When I brought them together for a workshop, I could see them feeding off of each other well, and I knew that this was going to work.
If you wanted to make a film about British teenagers it would be... well, it wouldn't interest me, let's put it like that. They'd be listening to music I hate, watching TV all the time, and talking about Big Brother. I needed to remove it, to get to the essence of adolescence without the paraphernalia of today. In a way, I am arrested in my adolescent emotions, like most of us I think are, so [the film is] very personal, funnily enough, despite it being about two girls. I identify with Mona to an unhealthy degree, so the main thing was to make these teenagers the sort of teenagers I could relate to myself, slightly more timeless and removed from now.
Pawel Pawlikowski
My Summer of Love Movie Details 🎥
Directed by
Pawel Pawlikowski
Writing Credits
Pawel Pawlikowski (Written by)
Michael Wynne (Collaborating writer)
Helen Cross (Novel)
Starring
Natalie Press
Emily Blunt
Paddy Considine
Emily Blunt
Paddy Considine
Music by
Alison Goldfrapp
Will Gregory
Cinematography by
Ryszard Lenczewski
Categories: EEBAFTAs, BAFTA Award Winner, EFA, European Film Award Nominee
Genres: Drama, Romance, Thriller
Country: United Kingdom
My Summer of Love Official Trailer
Our Choice
Unfavorite 👎 Unfavourite
It's Your Turn!
✋ This content is prepared by All Favorite Movies (AFM).
📣 You can take part in a vote, leave a comment and share in your social media to spread the world your favorite movies!
No comments: