"Last Summer" - Movie Review

 

Recently, I attended a screening at Lincoln Center for the new French drama directed by Catherine Breillat “Last Summer”.

Synopsis

When a woman has an affair with her husband’s teenage son from a previous marriage, what impact will this have on everyone’s relationship?

Story

Anne and Pierre (Léa Drucker, Olivier Rabourdin) appear to be happily married; she’s a successful lawyer and he’s an overworked businessman.  She did not have children previously, so together, they have adopted a couple of little girls.  He was married before and had a son, Theo (Samuel Kircher), who is now a very troubled 17 year old recently expelled from school.  Anne gives Pierre permission to invite the boy into their home with the hope that he can somehow manage to straighten him out once and for all.  This is a decision Anne soon comes to regret for many reasons. 

Almost immediately after Theo arrives, trouble commences.  He begins ransacking the house, making it look like burglars have broken in and some things turn up missing.  Basically, Anne and Pierre’s life turns topsy turvy.  Because Pierre is so busy with work, it winds up that Anne has to deal with most of the problems.  With Pierre totally distracted by his business, Anne welcomes the attention his son offers.  Soon, with Pierre away, Anne and Theo begin to have an affair.  Neither one of them tells Pierre, but eventually, some of Anne’s friends learn of it and ostracize her immediately. 

Eventually, Pierre and Theo agree to a weekend father and son getaway so that Pierre can at least try to bond with his son.  It is here that Theo confesses to his father that he has been enjoying various trysts with Anne while Pierre has been sidetracked.  Upon their return, Pierre confronts Anne about this, which she denies.  She soon learns that the relationship means more to Theo than it did to her.  When Theo contacts a lawyer about this relationship, it threatens Anne’s career because he is underage.  Will this dalliance cause Anne to lose both her profession and her marriage to Pierre?

 Review

Based on a Danish film from 2019, Breillat’s style brilliantly poses questions about the frailty of human morals.  It asks the question, “Why do we always seem to want something we either know we can’t have or at least shouldn’t have?”.   As an experienced family lawyer, Léa Drucker’s character has seen many cases of domestic abuse of varying types.  In short, she should know better.  Yet she doesn’t.  When faced with temptation, she immediately gives in without seeming to display an ounce of resistance.  Her world with her adopted daughters and successful, loving husband seem too perfect and the urge to self-destruct is far too strong. 

It should be kept in mind that she is neither a victim nor an instigator; she is merely a participant in an act that she knows will risk a great deal for her – both professionally and personally – if it is uncovered.  Yet she makes the decision – apparently a not too difficult one – to cast aside those concerns in favor of her immediate pleasure.  One unintended consequence of this is the impact this affair has on Samuel Kircher’s Théo; he takes it to heart far too much when it was thought this would just be another sexual conquest by a lustful teenager who seems capable of getting much younger and attractive women closer to his own age.

In previous interviews, Breillat has said that she hasn’t seen the original film on which hers is based.  It was presented to her by the screenwriter who wanted a French remake and offered it to her because she could make it better.  She said that while some of her film is verbatim from the original, one difference from the Danish version is that Breillat didn’t want the woman to have a predatorial dynamic and wanted the teen to be more involved.  Although they didn’t really improvise on set they did find different kinds of nuances while shooting.  The ending found in the script was different from the way it was finally shot, as they did two endings.