Startling Performances Make My Summer of Love Worth Its Wait

Pawel Pawlikowski's My Summer of Love is not a perfect film. It starts off sluggish and the pacing is uneven, but the acting is exceptional.

The film is about a summer relationship that develops between the mawkish Mona (Natalie Press), a young woman of the working-class, and the striking Tamsin (Emily Blunt), a wealthy sophisticate who sweeps into town on a white horse and literally charms the pants off of Mona.

The girls engage in their affair in secrecy, but Mona's brother Phil (Paddy Considine), an ex-con who has "found Jesus," suspects the relationship and acts as an obstacle. While this triad seems wrought with stereotypical characters, nothing is as it seems in My Summer of Love, and the relationships between all three are much more complex than a brief plot summary allows.

The lesbian relationship may be the surface plot used in its marketing campaign, but the underlying class conflict and examination of religious hypocrisy, is what makes this a thought-provoking adventure. In addition, the brother-sister relationship is a compelling one.

Phil loves his sister and she loves him, but they simply cannot communicate. While his born-again Christianity unites him with others in the community and gives him a sense of something greater than himself, its rigidity keeps him cut off from the only family he has, Mona.

There's a mean-spirited character to Tamsin, which has more meaning later, but is striking from the beginning. Much of the girls' bonding takes place at the expense of others who are mocked, teased, or otherwise disrespected. Mona is a naive girl, but not an innocent. Blunt and Press have great chemistry together.

Tamsin and Mona's friendship initially seems like a beacon of hope for the disenfranchised Mona, but the benefit for the upper-class Tamsin is not clear until late in the film in a well-crafter turn of events.

Although he has few scenes to himself, Considine is really quite brilliant. His take on Phil is a quiet, subtle one that is startling in its honesty. His performance alone is reason to recommend the film, but Blunt and Press are also great talents.
In general, it is a patient film, though.

You have to wait for what's coming in the final third of the film, in order to appreciate the writing throughout. My Summer of Love, is more than a tale of a summer affair. Its finale allows for multiple interpretations of everything leading up to it, but the clarity of Pawlikowski's direction is unmistakable.