Coverage from the 56th annual Chicago Film Festival
by Nick Taylor
One fun thing about not really watching trailers anymore is that a movie can surprise me pretty easily. For example, I knew from teasers that François Ozon’s Summer of 85 was pitching itself as the French answer to Call Me By Your Name. The story sees two incredibly handsome teenagers named Alex (Felix Lefebvre) and David (Benjamin Voison) have a life-altering romance during a life-changing special summer. But I completely missed the trailer that revealed a whole second narrative where a zombie-like Alex is being tried for an unspecified crime that sounds a lot like murdering David.
So, there’s the part of Summer of 85 that’s very much Ozon doing a Call Me By Your Name-style romance and the part that's the melancholic aftermath...
Hichame Alaouié’s cinematography unabashedly apes aspects of Sayumbho Mukdeeprom’s lush lensing, including the use of a 16mm camera. Giving Summer of 85 its own textures is Laure Gardette - genius here and with Ozon's By the Grace of God - who edits the film with real agility even as she finds the right, tentative tempo to match the discoveries Alex keeps making about himself and his world. Both boys seem aware of where their “friendship” is going, with the more experienced, self-assured, and slightly older David actively circling the blushing, reciprocal Alex. Ozon isn’t shy about telling us where his narrative is going, allowing us to luxuriate in the emotional rhythms of their relationship without making them so clichéd they can be taken for granted.
The gorgeous tones here are counterbalanced by the more mysterious, somber investigation into Alex’s crime, yet Ozon’s script and Gardette’s editing serve both storylines without letting one half overwhelm the other. As we learn more about Alex’s actions and the fate of his relationship with David, Summer of 85 reveals itself to be equally interested in first love and how a person grapples with the permanent absence of that love, as well as the push-pull between honoring that love and letting it consume you.
Ozon’s direction of his actors isn’t aiming for the intense psychological acuity of By the Grace of God or Guadagnino’s reservoirs of feeling, but the whole cast achieve a sturdy mixture of those approaches. Everyone makes uniformly strong, sharply etched impressions that credibly deepen as the movie progresses. Lefebvre and Voison give memorable spins on familiar archetypes, easily shouldering their section of the film through their terrific chemistry. Lefebvre in particular inhabits Alex’s sunniness in the summer and mournful sadness in the present, connecting these traits into a heartsore young man looking for resolution. Valeria Bruni Tedeschi's balancing act between self-deception and lucidity as David’s mother emerges as the most layered turn of the supporting cast, so eager to see her son with a positive influence without clarifying if she knows the extent of their relationship.
Part of me worries about overhyping a film I didn’t expect to enjoy this much. Could I do without Susanne? Probably. And yet, it navigates a dual-narrative structure in a way that gratifies both halves of its story better than Charlatan, without sacrificing aesthetic cohesion and beauty. It holds our fascination in a passionate, ever-evolving romance longer than Undine. It showcases teenage eroticism and horrible tragedy without being lurid about either, even as it’s filtered through the perspective of a morbidly depressed teenager. Summer of 85 is able to flaunt its pastiche while still conveying its own sensibilities, and completely lovely to boot. Check it out as soon as you can. B+
Available to stream in the Midwest through Chi Fest until October 25th