My Summer of Love

2005 British Academy Award winner My Summer of Love is a powerful love story so artistic that it made me wonder if this was really new movie (well, last year's), as it feels like something made decades ago when times were easier and movies were simpler. But it is a movie from last year, and it's something only Europeans could've made. My Summer of Love feels like a poem.

Two teenage girls, one a small town tomboy and the other rich girl on vacation, fall in love and spend the summer together. That's the story, simple. What makes the movie so great are the performances by Nathalie Press as Mona and Emily Blunt as Tamsin, who make the girls feel real from the moment they accidentally meet. Nathalie Press in particular has such a special beauty which is hard to describe but I'm sure it has to do with her being a redhead.
Paddy Considine costars as Phil, Mona's brother. A once troubled man who met God, who told him to make a cross, place it in the hills of the beautiful Yorkshire, and dedicate his life to him. It sounds like a completely separated subplot, and that's not totally untrue, but the ideas of love and faith go together.
And Paddy Considine has been doing great work lately, quickly becoming one of my favorite working actors.

But make no mistake, this is no comedy, it's a full on serious romance. And thanks to the great direction by Paul Pavlikovsky and the excellent cinematography of Ryszard Lenczewski who shot the film so beautifully, really shown in the outdoor scenes under the radiant sun on the two stunning girls, My Summer of Love is a sweet, delicate story that looks and feels like a classic, even if it's only one year old.