Catherine Corsini’s Summertime is a sexy summer romance set in 1971, when the bearded socialist menfolk were still not entirely on board with feminism. It is well acted, well shot, earnest and high-minded in its eroticism, but with a certain Mills-and-Boony-swoony-ness that creates something unsubversive in the love affair itself.
Delphine (Izïa Higelin) is the smart, lonely and unfulfilled daughter of a farming couple; she goes to Paris to study and falls for the beautiful Carole (Cécile de France), a teacher and feminist campaigner. But when Delphine’s dad becomes sick, she feels she has to return to help look after both him and the farm, and Carole abandons her Parisian life to come with her.
There are some nice moments and one or two icky ones. When wild, life-affirming Carole persuades Delphine’s grumpy mum (Noémie Lvovsky) to dance with her around the farmyard, the movie is trying way too hard. It’s a film that is all about transgression, yet there is something a bit conservative in its apparent assumptions about whether city types and country folk can ever really live together. A fleeting romance.
