Sunday, July 10, 2005
My Summer of Love (2004)
Director: Paul Pavlikovsky
*Warning the following analysis contains a discussion of the entire film – including the ending.
It is surprising, in the end, to discover My Summer of Love is a film about social class when all along you were sure it was an idealistic coming of age movie (with a lesbian spin). No, this is not a film about the healing power of young love, quite the opposite; rather, we see the damage that all-consuming, all-trusting young love can have when it turns bad (or viciously self-indulgent).
In the opening sequence director Paul Pavlikovsky perfectly sets-up his main theme: exploring the lingering ramifications of class in modern British society. The images in the opening scenes establish Tamsin’s and Mona’s class (and therefore power) differences. One of the film’s opening views is a heavenly upward angle shot of Tamsin high atop a horse. It is a tracking shot from Mona’s position lying in some grass on the side of a country road. Tamsin is beautiful, bathe perfectly in summer light and blue sky. Mona is of yet unseen, (perhaps injured?), covered by wild grasses beside a beat-up motorbike. Next we see Tamsin, still beautiful and still high above Mona on her horse, trotting down the road. Mona, by contrast, sits low on a small motorbike, pushing it along with her legs, as it does not have an engine. As the girls depart Tamsin rides upward to her wealthy country cottage while Mona coasts her bike-shell downhill back to her home above a shabby pub. Tamsin’s privilege and Mona’s depravation could not be more obvious. A fantastic set-up achieved solely by Pavlikovsky’s images (no dialogue is ever spoken about the girls’ wealth and poverty).
From there class filters into the background and the film turns into a coming of age romance filled with the wistful idealisms: love can conqueror the class differences between the girls; love can fill-in the vast voids left by tragic and neglectful family situations; love will help Mona and Tamsin to begin again.
In their trust and growing love Mona and Tamsin reveal their difficult home lives. Mona never met her dad, and her mom died of cancer. Her brother, recently out of jail for burglary and recently having discovered god, has wrecked the pub they own (and live above) with a plan to turn it into a church of sorts. How they will survive financially is not clear. Tamsin has the upper class version of the family tragedy. Mom is always away on holiday and Dad is always off sleeping with his secretary. "I’m basically an orphan" Tamsin tells Mona, a true orphan. Still raw and painful to Tamsin is the death of her sister from anorexia (a very blue-blooded way to go). She is all alone in her vast house.
The emptiness in each girl’s life is clear and their falling in love, natural. Although their plan to run away together is idealistic and farfetched it is perfectly within the realm of adolescent reasoning. (Didn’t we all make such escape plans during the restless freedom of those long summer days late in high school?)
In the final sequence, Mona (after escaping from her brother) arrives at Tamsin’s house with a little bag of her few possessions planning to . . . well they don’t really know, other than they are in love and ready to run away together. Pavlikovsky has set-up perfectly the stunning twist which changes My Summer of Love into a commentary on class from a (somewhat) typical coming-of age romance-drama. Tamsin’s story has all been one elaborate lie. Tamsin’s family, home from what must have been a long weekend away at the end of summer, is a typical upper-class English family. Her parents are happily together, her sister is very much alive and, we are all shocked to discover, Tamsin is not running off with Mona; rather, she is going back to her privileged boarding-school life now that summer is over. Tamsin is nothing but a bored (and vicious) upper class girl who has used Mona (and her brother) to amuse herself. Mona was simply a little adventure, a little risk, a test of her powers of manipulation and charm before returning to her safe, stable, upper-class boarding-school life. (You can imagine her having a good laugh with her uniformed classmates about the poor little girl she manipulated over holiday.)
And where does this leave Mona? (And her brother?) Mona returns to where she was when the film began, on the side of the road with no place to go. She is left completely bereft, of hope, of love and of a future. Her only revenge is physical – Mona nearly kills Tamsin by choking her in a pond before walking off into . . . She will most likely return to having sex with men in the back of their cars, soon pregnant and stuck in her depressed little town.
The hope of Tamsin’s and Mona’s life together is shattered, revealing more clearly the stark differences of their lives apart. An amazing and surprising study on what class and wealth predetermines in British (and our) society.
Should you see it? Yes, a fantastic and smart film.
*Warning the following analysis contains a discussion of the entire film – including the ending.
It is surprising, in the end, to discover My Summer of Love is a film about social class when all along you were sure it was an idealistic coming of age movie (with a lesbian spin). No, this is not a film about the healing power of young love, quite the opposite; rather, we see the damage that all-consuming, all-trusting young love can have when it turns bad (or viciously self-indulgent).
In the opening sequence director Paul Pavlikovsky perfectly sets-up his main theme: exploring the lingering ramifications of class in modern British society. The images in the opening scenes establish Tamsin’s and Mona’s class (and therefore power) differences. One of the film’s opening views is a heavenly upward angle shot of Tamsin high atop a horse. It is a tracking shot from Mona’s position lying in some grass on the side of a country road. Tamsin is beautiful, bathe perfectly in summer light and blue sky. Mona is of yet unseen, (perhaps injured?), covered by wild grasses beside a beat-up motorbike. Next we see Tamsin, still beautiful and still high above Mona on her horse, trotting down the road. Mona, by contrast, sits low on a small motorbike, pushing it along with her legs, as it does not have an engine. As the girls depart Tamsin rides upward to her wealthy country cottage while Mona coasts her bike-shell downhill back to her home above a shabby pub. Tamsin’s privilege and Mona’s depravation could not be more obvious. A fantastic set-up achieved solely by Pavlikovsky’s images (no dialogue is ever spoken about the girls’ wealth and poverty).
From there class filters into the background and the film turns into a coming of age romance filled with the wistful idealisms: love can conqueror the class differences between the girls; love can fill-in the vast voids left by tragic and neglectful family situations; love will help Mona and Tamsin to begin again.
In their trust and growing love Mona and Tamsin reveal their difficult home lives. Mona never met her dad, and her mom died of cancer. Her brother, recently out of jail for burglary and recently having discovered god, has wrecked the pub they own (and live above) with a plan to turn it into a church of sorts. How they will survive financially is not clear. Tamsin has the upper class version of the family tragedy. Mom is always away on holiday and Dad is always off sleeping with his secretary. "I’m basically an orphan" Tamsin tells Mona, a true orphan. Still raw and painful to Tamsin is the death of her sister from anorexia (a very blue-blooded way to go). She is all alone in her vast house.
The emptiness in each girl’s life is clear and their falling in love, natural. Although their plan to run away together is idealistic and farfetched it is perfectly within the realm of adolescent reasoning. (Didn’t we all make such escape plans during the restless freedom of those long summer days late in high school?)
In the final sequence, Mona (after escaping from her brother) arrives at Tamsin’s house with a little bag of her few possessions planning to . . . well they don’t really know, other than they are in love and ready to run away together. Pavlikovsky has set-up perfectly the stunning twist which changes My Summer of Love into a commentary on class from a (somewhat) typical coming-of age romance-drama. Tamsin’s story has all been one elaborate lie. Tamsin’s family, home from what must have been a long weekend away at the end of summer, is a typical upper-class English family. Her parents are happily together, her sister is very much alive and, we are all shocked to discover, Tamsin is not running off with Mona; rather, she is going back to her privileged boarding-school life now that summer is over. Tamsin is nothing but a bored (and vicious) upper class girl who has used Mona (and her brother) to amuse herself. Mona was simply a little adventure, a little risk, a test of her powers of manipulation and charm before returning to her safe, stable, upper-class boarding-school life. (You can imagine her having a good laugh with her uniformed classmates about the poor little girl she manipulated over holiday.)
And where does this leave Mona? (And her brother?) Mona returns to where she was when the film began, on the side of the road with no place to go. She is left completely bereft, of hope, of love and of a future. Her only revenge is physical – Mona nearly kills Tamsin by choking her in a pond before walking off into . . . She will most likely return to having sex with men in the back of their cars, soon pregnant and stuck in her depressed little town.
The hope of Tamsin’s and Mona’s life together is shattered, revealing more clearly the stark differences of their lives apart. An amazing and surprising study on what class and wealth predetermines in British (and our) society.
Should you see it? Yes, a fantastic and smart film.
