My Summer of Love

Directed by: Pawel Pawlikowski

Memorable quotes:

Tamsin: "Are you alright? Did you crash or something?
Mona: No, I was just resting.
Tamsin: What's your name?
Mona: Mona.
Tamsin: You don't look like a Mona."

Tamsin: Apparently, I'm a bad influence on people.

Mona: You are a bastard, that's all you are. And I want this place back the way it was.

Mona: "You could have told me that before.
Ricky: Oh yeah like I'm gonna. Get in the car.
Mona: No, I fucking will not.
Ricky: Suit yourself."

Tamsin: "You live in a pub?
Mona: Yeah. But it's not like a pub anymore, it's more like a temple. It's me brother, he found God, or God found him. He's been born again."

Tamsin: "So, it's just you and your brother in your pub?
Mona: Just me, me brother, and God.
Tamsin: Is he completely mad?
Mona: Yeah."

Mona: "She is really beautiful.
Tamsin: Yes, she was. Do you think I look like her?
Mona: Yeah."

Tamsin: "Have you read Nietzsche?
Mona: Who?
Tamsin: Nietzsche. This great philosopher, and he just believed that, you know, people... there are some people that are just put on this planet to succeed or just made to blossom, and it doesn't matter how many lesser mortals suffer and get fucked over. It doesn't matter as long as they succeed."

Tamsin: God's dead. God's dead: this is what's real.

Tamsin: "So, what are you gonna do with your life?
Mona: I'm gonna be a lawyer. I'm gonna get a job in an abattoir, work really hard, get a boyfriend who's like... a bastard, and churn out all these kids, right, with mental problems. And the, I'm gonna wait for menopause...or cancer."

Phil: "Why are you trying to hurt me?
Mona: Cause I think you're a fucking fake, that's why."

Phil: "What is wrong with you?
Mona : I just miss me brother.
Phil : I'm here.
Mona : That ain't you. It ain't.
Phil : Oh no, this is me, this is the real me.
Mona : I want the old Phil
Phil : Well that old Phil, he didn't make me very happy.
Mona : He made me happy. I loved my brother, he used to be real. I haven't got any family, me home's changed, no one fancies me...
Phil : Oh Jesus watch over this child, watch over her...
Mona : Oh no, fuck off! Fuck off! "

Tamsin: "What's he making? 

Mona: A cross. He's putting it up at the top of the hill to cleanse the valley of evil. "

Tamsin: "Now, these are nice.

Mona: Thanks. There are me mum's, and this used to be the swan. "

Tamsin: "What do you think of this place?

Mona: It's funny. 

Tamsin: It's like Lego, it's all sort of pretend. "

Tasmin: And Mona you should see her. She's just a dog. She is... she is a fucking whore. She is... she is also a blond-haired and big tits, and these high heels, and she's got no fucking brains. She's got nothing. 

Tamsin:  This is Edith Piaf. I just adore her. She was this marvellous Parisian woman, who had such a wonderfully tragic life. And she was married three times, and each husband died in mysterious circumstances. The last one was a boxing champion and she killed him with a fork. She didn't even go to prison because in France crimes of passion are forgiven.

Tamsin: So my mother is off with some dodgy theatre company pretending to be an actress, and my dad is busy with his secretary, so I'm practically an orphan.

Tamsin: If you hear any strange noises in the night don't panic. It's just the furniture creaking cause it's an old house. 

Tamsin: "What are your plans for today?
Mona: Manicure, pedicure, full body wax..."

Tamsin: It's like a strange cathedral.

Mona: "Which one do you want?
Tamsin: That one.
Mona: Which one?
Tamsin: Guess."

Tamsin: I just felt so useless. She was my one sister, my beautiful sister and she just started to turn into this monster. These bones on her body, they just started to jut out. It was like someone had stuck daggers under her skin. And her hair, she started growing hair all over her body. It was like a sort of dense fur, like a werewolf. And she stopped smiling, she couldn't smile anymore because she was throwing up all the time and the vomit, acid made her teeth go all yellow and she just stopped smiling and stopped living. I miss her so much.

Tamsin: "Are you in love with him still?
Mona: No.
Tamsin:Were you ever?
Mona: I thought I was."

Tamsin: Men like that should be castrated.

Phil: If I can be saved, anybody can be saved, anybody can be saved! The Lord Jesus started speaking to me. He told me to build this cross, to claim this valley back in his name, for him.

Tasmin: He didn't love her enough that's why she died.

Tamsin: "If you leave me I'll kill you.
Mona: If you leave me I'll kill you... and then I'll kill myself."

Tamsin: I can't feel anything. I just feel empty.

Mona: I love her. She loves me. We're going away together. Forever. And we are never coming back.

Tamsin: Look, I couldn't be myself back there in front of my mother. Anyway, I was just playing a part, I wasn't even me. Come on, you know me. You know me.

Tamsin: Don't be upset about Sadie. Sadie was just a bit of poetic licence. I mean I'm a fantaisiste.

Tamsin: What the fuck are you doing? You fucking crazy bitch!



Plot:

During the summer in the Yorkshire, a rough, lonely and angry teenager Mona meets Tamsin. She is gorgeous, educated, and just as lonely as Mona. She smokes, she reads Nietzsche and she listens to Edith Piaf. Tamsin is a sudden breath of fresh air in Mona's dreary existence, and they immediately are drawn to one another, almost feeding of each other to get stronger. Mona becomes infatuated with Tamsin and even starts thinking of a life with her, but things don't go as planned...


Review:

My Summer of Love is one hell of a movie! You certainly don't see movies like that everyday and just for that reason I'd recommend that you have a watch.
It is one of those character - driven movies though, so don't expect any actions, characters, or special effects. This movie solely focuses on two teenagers and the brother of one on them, and that's pretty much it. We discover and learn about the characters, while they also learn about one another. I thought this movie was really smart, as we usually don't have a twist with such films. With most other character-driven movies I've watched, I always felt like I had seen the characters being developed sufficiently for me to know them inside out. I thus gladly welcomed a twist this time!
Emily Blunt is absolutely mesmerizing in this film. I believe that the first time I ever saw her was in The Devil Wears Prada. Although she had only a small part in it, she did catch my eye and I was quite certain that this wasn't the last time I'd see her. Funny enough, The Devil Wears Prada was made a couple of years after My Summer of Love, but I only came across this last one recently. I don't even think the movie even made it to the cinema in my country.
I'm all the more glad that I've watched it. It got this strange dreamy atmosphere, that captivate you without you knowing exactly why. The soundtrack greatly contributes to this almost magical state.
The only thing that bothered me was how Emily Blunt looked a lot older than Natalie Press, whose character is the main focus of this film. I'm well aware that Blunt is actually younger than Press, but to me it looked the exact opposite.
Natalie Press' performance is beautiful, and I loved the scenes she shared with her on screen brother, Paddy Considine. I thought that Phil was an incredibly interesting character. We are faced with a young man who is trying to find who he is, and who is desperate to run away from the person he used to be. Nevertheless, one only has to scratch the surface to see that his violent past is not completely behind him, and that he still harbour lots of angers and guilt. I think that in the end he realized that the piety that he tried to impose on both himself and his sister was only a diversion in a way. It made him concentrate on something else than his problems or his sister's. It made him feel part of a community. His sudden love for God gave him a new identity, but as his sister points out, it seems fake, for he has lost who he was. He is hiding instead of trying to pull himself together. He is so lost that he is also unable to take care of his sister and help her properly. He wishes she could see him as a model or as a guide, when it looks like he needs one himself.
Now, for some strange reasons, I quite disliked Natalie Press's character, that is to say Mona. Everytime she did anything there was something bugging me. I cannot even say what exactly. There was just something in her character that truly annoyed me. This doesn't mean that I didn't felt for her character though. I felt really bad for her. She just wanted to be love. The last scene was especially powerful. After Mona almost drowns Tamsin, she chooses not to be a victim anymore and takes control of the situation and of her own life. She certainly looks more confident than ever while she walks away from Blunt's character.
Talking of which, I though that the character of Tamsin was tragically fantastic. There was just something about her that kept me watching. The duality of her character was fascinating. She is so strong and vulnerable at the same time, so gentle yet cruel. Everytime she opened up I felt for her. Yet I have to say that I had a slightly doubt about her. One scene at the beginning made me doubt from the start. She claimed to have lost her sister to anorexia, yet she can be seen barely eating at the dinner table with her parents, even pushing her almost full plate away from her. This made me think that maybe she was the one suffering from anorexia. Although this precise aspect is never explored in the movie, is still led me to believe that there was something more about her that we didn't know. I still didn't expect the final twist though.
I'd say that if you tend to enjoy character-driven films, and if you want to see great actors in action, you might want to give this film a try. In any case, you don't see movies like that often!

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