Directed by: Catherine Breillat
Distributed by: Sideshow/Janus
Written by Michael Clawson
90/100
In her first film since 2014’s “Abuse of Weakness,” French director Catherine Breillat largely forgoes the graphic extremes of her most scandalous inquiries into female sexuality and desire. In other words, there’s nothing as visceral as Amira Cesar making tea out of a used tampon in “Anatomy of Hell,” or the unsimulated sex in “Romance” (sorry to disappoint!). But as a story about a middle-aged woman having a sexual affair with her adolescent stepson, the libidinous “Last Summer” still very much retains the raw, discomfiting effect of Breillat’s provocative tendencies at their best. It’s the only film of hers I’ve seen that might rightly be described as an erotic thriller, and its tension lies beneath a surface of atypical airiness and refinement.
In one of the finest performances of the year, Léa Drucker plays Anne, an eminently bourgeois lawyer, wife, and mother to two young adopted daughters. Like any of Hitchcock’s blonde heroines, she makes an elegant impression, almost always wearing creamy, close-fitting dresses and high heels as she sees clients or sips wine in her stylishly furnished home. She is also stepmother to Théo (Olivier Rabourdin), her husband’s unruly son from a previous marriage. With wavy locks of hair and a broodingly seductive face, Théo is the spitting image of Bjorn Andresen in “Death in Venice,” and it’s not long after he arrives in Anne’s home that an erotic charge develops between them. Never one to moralize about taboo-shattering behavior, Breillat tracks their escalating attraction with a cool, analytical neutrality. Even once Anne and Théo’s flirty gazes give way to a full-blown, consummated affair, Breillat rejects any simple characterization of Anne as sexually predatory, observing with detachment how confidently Théo reciprocates Anne’s carnal desires.
There is something of Claude Chabrol in Breillat’s clinical approach and the film’s milieu. The camera operates like a microscope, pressing down unsparingly on Anne and Théo as it studies them. When they first kiss, an extended close-up of their mouths all but eliminates any sense of emotional context, stripping the moment down to its corporeal mechanics. Sex itself is something that “Last Summer” views as rather simple; it is power, dishonesty, and manipulation, on the other hand, that can be complex and nasty. When Anne and Théo’s relationship nearly spills out into the open, the film takes on a tremendous psychological intensity, driven by Anne’s ruthlessly defensive instincts and Théo’s shocked vulnerability.
Beyond the terrifically assured performances by Drucker and Rabourdin, the story is enriched by contextual details. For instance, Anne’s legal practice is geared towards the defense of young sexual assault victims. Scenes of her with clients brim with authenticity, and they cleverly expand Breillat’s exploration of whose voices are or aren’t perceived as credible. The writing is sharp on all fronts, and it comes vividly to life through handsome cinematography and Breillat’s taut direction. At once sunny and chilly, engrossing and unsettling, it’s perhaps her slyest work to date.
“Last Summer” Trailer
Michael Clawson is a member of the Seattle Film Critic Society you can follow his passion for film on Letterboxd.