My Summer of Love [DVD]

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Product Description ------------------- British coming-of-age drama, set in a Yorkshire mining town during the 1970s, about two young girls from different social backgrounds who become friends. Tomboy Mona (Nathalie Press) lives with her God-fearing ex-alcoholic brother Phil (Paddy Considine) and dreams of fixing up an old moped she has bought for only ten pounds. Spoilt rich kid Tamsin (Emily Blunt) wants to escape from her dreary surroundings as well, and when the two girls meet up on the Yorkshire moors, they begin an intense, emotional friendship. When Tamsin discovers that Mona wants to see Phil back the way he was before he found God, she decides to do whatever she can to make him revert, with tragic consequences. .co.uk Review ------------- There's a tantalizing touch of irony in the title My Summer of Love, since this superbly-acted relationship drama reveals much more than love between its curiously fascinating characters. As directed by Polish-born Pawel Pawlikowski (a veteran of British TV documentaries whose previous film was the praiseworthy Last Resort), this unconventional love story is an engrossing exercise in mood and psychology, set in a bleak but invitingly sunlit village in Yorkshire. It's there that lonely, working-class teenager Mona (Nathalie Press) encounters rebellious rich-girl Tamsin (Emily Blunt ( /gp/search?search-alias=dvd&field-keywords=Emily%20Blunt+-ntsc )), and their unlikely friendship grows ... but is it really love? Or is Tamsin (who was suspended from boarding school) merely indulging her clever penchant for emotional manipulation during a lazy summer of privilege? Mona's born-again Christian brother (Paddy Considine) factors into the film's languorous mood and complex emotional landscape; this is a film in which love and loss are inseparably intertwined, and motivations remain partially hidden, making it all the more powerful when guarded truths are revealed. In addition to being a compelling study of class distinctions, My Summer of Love includes scenes of anxious menace and some unexpected surprises, packing more into 84 minutes than most films manage in two hours or more. Pawlikowski was listed among "10 directors to watch" in a 2005 article in Variety, and My Summer of Love validates that accl. --Jeff Shannon