Week 4 Of The Second Letterboxd Festival

I often wonder what goes through the minds of some of the people involved in the making of a film like My Summer Of Love - most particularly the director and the actors involved. When you are faced with a film that deals with a lesbian love affair, has a fairly explicit sex scene, and the two actresses involved also happen to be quite lovely, how do you play the scene out?

Because My Summer Of Love isn't one of your titillating pieces of exploitative tat or some god-awful DTV horror film. It's a proper film, I guess some people would say, whatever that means. With those elements in place, though, there is…

My Summer of Love is famous for being the breakout film for a young Emily Blunt but whilst she has gone on to bigger things this is still her best film and best performance. It is a dreamy coming-of-age story about control and infatuation that uses its setting to great effect. The film centers on Mona, a teenage girl used by a married man and isolated from her born again Christian brother. She is desperately looking for a proper connection and finds Tamsin, a girl who on the outside at least, is the complete opposite to our trouble protagonist.

Director, Pawel Pawlikowski, creates a world that wallows in this near-obsessive relationship. It is a world of endless summers, oppressive heat…

I watched this as the fourth film in the second letterboxd festival

This was my second watch after at least two years away from it, and now I remember why nothing really stayed with me from this film. My Summer of Love is a very small coming-of-age story and not much happens. It's beautifully shot and the two leads are often mesmerizing. Where this film lost me was in the dialogue. At times it was so unbearably clunky I cringed.

However, when no one was talking and the camera focused on a specific feature of Emily Blunt or Natalie Press or some beautiful piece of artwork, the film felt important. It was much more dynamic during transitions or when they…

Week 4 of the 2nd Letterboxd Film Festival.

I think I'm totally the wrong audience for this movie (except that I find Emily Blunt easy on the eyes) and that does contribute to my dislike of it. Some reviewers have pieced together and examined the backstories of each of the teenage girls who are the central characters. But from what we see on screen, they are each instantly comfortable in each others world. They both were rather immature to me and didn't come of age all that much. If any of them did any growing up it was Mona, the one who lives with her brother.

I did not enjoy the story element of this film that has become a…

Week 4 of Letterboxd Film Festival

My Summer of Love is a film that is memorable mainly for the acting and not the story. Don't get me wrong; the film has it's moments many of which are touching, beautiful, or intense, but it is clearly flawed in places. The acting is what makes it memorable. The cast is pretty great, especially leads Natalie Press and Emily Blunt. The relationship between their two characters feels very honest and defined thanks to their performances. Another strength of the film lies with Paddy Considine. Not only is his performance terrific, but his character is so well layered. His character has enough depth to have carried the film on his own. There's just something…

This is a UK indie that I just heard about for the first time today and decided to check out since I didn't have anything else to do. I went in knowing nothing about it and came out pretty happy. The way the shots in the beginning really capture the feeling of summer in all of its heat and non-conformital glory is really something. A lot of the shots were really nice, but at times some of the edits felt a little odd to me. I liked how the colors seemed a little washed out and not super vibrant, it successfully added to the bleak and somewhat scary undertones of the plot. Emily Blunt's character was a real treat to…