Pictured Natalie Press as Mona ( left ) and Emily Blunt as Tamsin ( right ) star in Pawel Pawlikowski's My Summer of Love. Photo by Susan Allnut
One hot afternoon in the lush Cornwall countryside, Mona ( Natalie Press ) , a red-haired beauty who's fallen asleep by the roadside, is sited by Tamsin ( Emily Blunt ) , a brunette Princess Charming who's conveniently riding by on horseback. The gorgeous Tamsin gently awakens Mona to see if anything's amiss. Though Mona staggers away from Tamsin, still groggy and making polite noises that everything's OK, Tamsin has awakened a lot more in Mona than either has realized. Here is the answer to another bored summer in her dreary little village for local girl Mona and a breath of fresh air for the ennui of the cultured rich girl, Tamsin, who's staying nearby for the season.
Thus begins the enchanted fractured fairytale romance of My Summer of Love, the deliciously sensual new film from writer-director Pawel Pawlikowski opening Friday at the Landmark Century. Fractured because this is a tale of teenage love and lust which Pawlikowski captures it in all its wonderful/dreadful intensity. The look and feel of the movie is the cinematic equivalent of the Broadway standard, Lazy Afternoon, so perfectly does it capture the mood of that song's evocative lyrics: 'It's a lazy afternoon/and the beetle bugs are zooming/and the tulip trees are blooming/and there's not another human in view/but us two.'
Mona's an orphan with a charismatic older brother Phil ( Paddy Considine ) , who has a long history riddled with violence and petty crimes. Reformed, Phil's turned the family's pub, The Swan, into a haven for born-again Christians like himself. Disgusted with what she perceives as a desecration to the one happy thing in her life and her relationship with a married man abruptly ended, Mona soon finds herself taking a stroll toward the family estate of a certain beautiful, rich brunette.
Stepping inside the gate we first hear the alternate dreamy /dissonant bell-like 'La La' music that will serve as the love theme for Mona and Tamsin. This is the first warning that this fairytale romance will not be all kisses and roses. Mona ignores another cryptic warning from the father, who's on his way out. When he finds out Mona's come to visit his daughter, he points toward the sound of the cello music wafting out of the upstairs windows, adding a cryptic, 'Good luck' for good measure before speeding away in his car.
Unsophisticated Mona isn't ready to hear any warnings. She just knows that she's poised for Something Completely Different and a hot lesbian affair with the wealthy summer girl certainly suits the bill. Entering Tamsin's room, Mona sits entranced listening to Tam play. 'That was the The Swan by Saint-Saëns' Tamsin comments after finishing the cello piece. 'I live above the Swan pub,' Mona responds thus making plain the cultural differences between the two. For her part, Tamsin quickly sizes up the country mouse vs. city mouse situation and realizes that she has found an eager romantic protégé in Mona. Soon, the mysterious Tam is introducing her friend to Edith Piaf, fine wine, and paying to have a motor installed in Mona's motorbike.
Lots of handheld camera work and improvised scenes add to the growing emotional intimacy and confusion. At last they spend the night together under Tamsin's royal purple sheets—only to be interrupted by Mona's brother who has finally come looking for her. The supernova relationship of Tamsin the fantasist and the more realistic Mona is bound to burn out but Pawlikowski defies expectations with some interesting character twists and turns. Blunt and Press do exceptional work in their screen debuts and Considine is equally impressive as Mona's brother.
The late, great singer-songwriter Laura Nyro, who wrote very tellingly during her own teenage years, once said to me, 'I think teenagers are in touch with the primal forces of life and have a certain folk wisdom that's only available during those years.' That's a perfect assessment of the brief, intense love between Mona and Tamsin in My Summer of Love. An intensity to envy—or to be grateful to have missed. www.landmarktheatres.com
My Summer of Love Q&A with star Emily Blunt and Writer-Director Pawlikowski
By Richard Knight, Jr.
Polish-born director Pawel Pawlikowski has found two new stars, Emily Blunt and Natalie Press, who make their debut in his film of intense lesbian teenage romance, My Summer of Love. WCT spoke with the tiny, gorgeous veddy British and polite Blunt, who was dressed in a green knitted shawl, jeans and sandals and was on her first U.S. press junket. She was accompanied by her writer-director Pawlikowski, who gestured expressively, and spoke in accented English.
WCT: How did the project come about? I know it was based on a book.
PP: The first spark was the characters. The two girls, especially Mona, because it was primarily told with her voice. I'm very interested in layered characters with personal dilemmas and intense psychological inner lives and these two certainly qualified. This was really rich material to work with and would allow for a lot of improvisation. I had another project that I was working on that collapsed so I went back to this book and decided I wanted to work with it. It had too much other characters and plots—
WCT: So you stripped it down to basically the two girls and the brother.
EB: Pawel added the brother.
WCT: You found incredible locations.
EB: They're hugely important to the movie.
PP: I also looked for actors that could bring a lot of texture to the parts and it was wonderful that Emily could actually play the cello though I wanted it slightly off.
WCT: Your playing's beautiful.
EB: Thank you. It's kind of hard to watch that scene though I find it sort of endearing. I think because I can play that piece ( 'The Swan' ) note perfect and I used to be quite good and play every day. As soon as you stop you lose it.
WCT: Well you'll be compared to Lori Singer in Short Cuts.
EB: That's it exactly! ( laughs )
WCT: How did you come into the film?
EB: Well I knew that it had been casting for awhile and I got the call to go in and meet Pawel ( pronounced Pavil ) and I was a little intimidated to audition for him because I wasn't real comfortable with improvising which I'd heard he was doing in the casting sessions. I'd been so used to working and auditioning a certain way I was quite nervous about it but when I met him I liked him so much. I heard that it went OK—but the next day I met Natalie who'd already been cast and there was a chemistry there ... . We're very, very different people off camera ... and I think Pawel needed that to get that spark, that energy. It was interesting working with her, the scenes just seemed to sort of 'arrive,' seemed to materialize.
WCT: There's a lot of improvisation?
PP: Yes—within the scenes. The scene that I always screen tested actors with was the Edith Piaf dancing scene. It was great to see what different actors would do with that. It's a very physical scene and there was some hesitancy at some of the auditions.
EB: It's very tender and I held her very close and Natalie said that I was the first person who came in who really held her with confidence.
WCT: Well it's a very erotic scene and you immediately see that mentor-student relationship in the making between the two young women. I liked that you shaped the scene toward a physical seduction with the wine and the music. It reminded me of Susan Sarandon and Catherine Deneuve in The Hunger and then you didn't go exactly in that direction. Many of the scenes seemed to defy expectations ... .
PP: That's the way I work. I try to structure my productions like that. I like to create a little world that suggests a lot of possibilities and allows the actors to feel comfortable. There's certainly a narrative structure but it's kind of like painting with actors—there's room for a lot of interesting colors within the framework.
WCT: A Seurat, pointillist approach?
PP: Yes, that's it exactly. Or like assembling a Taschen book. You have a blank canvas upon which to paint this picture. The locations help you sometimes as much as the actors. As the work progresses you begin to notice, 'Too much red, not enough pink.' It's a very nice approach to filmmaking—not always easy to make happen. You certainly collaborate with your actors and surroundings and utilize what they bring to the work.
WCT: Like using Nathalie's drawing ability and making it a part of the movie.
EB: She would do it at rehearsal. She'd draw me and she did some really good ones.
PP: It became an interesting component of her character.
WCT: Do you know anyone like Tamsin?
EB: Oh yeah, sure. People I've met, people I wanted to be like at school. People that are magnetic and filled with charisma but also have a lot of mystery about them. Somewhat pretentious but still endearing in a way and anytime those people smile at you or sort of hold out a hand it's like, 'Oooh,' it's the moment of your life. I remember feeling like that and waiting for that moment of acceptance from some people that I've known.
WCT: Which brings me to my lesbian readership—how did you prepare for The Scene?
EB: ( laughs ) 'The Scene!'
PP: We tried to avoid it. ( both laugh ) ... Actually, for a long time I went back and forth about actually showing it.
WCT: Did you have any problems with the love scene?
EB: I think it's very hard with those scenes to be completely at ease. You're standing there with your tits out and of course it's embarrassing on one level and it's one of the most unsexy things you can film—there are so many technical things going on. It's always a bit excruciating for everyone and terribly time consuming. ... The main thing about them is there's nothing very merry about shooting them.
