My Summer of Love

If there are two things I want to see in a movie, those things would be teenage lesbianism and fundamentalist Christianity. My Summer of Love, then, is the perfect film, though I thought it only managed to be good, rather than great. Director Pawel Pawlikowski, whose Last Resort was one of the most charming films of 2000, here tries a much more intimate subject matter. Mona (Nathalie Press) is a teenager in Yorkshire. The pub her family owns has been converted into a Christian meeting place by her born-again brother (Paddy Considine), who has given up booze because now he’s all drunk on God. With her parents dead and her only living relative gone heaven-happy, Mona finds love in the arms of Tamsin (Emily Blunt), a beautiful and wealthy youngster who’s decadent lifestyle includes summoning the dead, seducing Christians and sapphism. Dreamy photography gives the young love an otherworldly quality, which meshes nicely with the fundamentalism that lurks just outside their relationship, threatening to destroy it.