Look at that title: A SUMMER'S TALE. You don't
have to know anything about the movie to get automatically nostalgic when you
hear it. You can feel what kind of movie it is going to be. And, it is.
Eric Rohmer's 1996 romance from France
concerns a recent mathematics graduate who travels to a resort town in hopes of
running into his pseudo-girlfriend there. The student (Melvil Poupaud) is a shy
musician who wanders the town by day and plucks at his guitar by night. I call
his girlfriend pseudo because she may or may not even show up, and they're only
kind/sorta together. You know how it is.
The student meets a cute, outgoing waitress
(Amanda Langlet) who hangs out with him every day, walking around town,
exploring the country side, and discussing everything, the way young people
discuss everything. The student goes on at length about how he never wants to
belong to a group, how important his music is to him, and of course,
never shuts up about his "girlfriend."
If you're like me you want to wring the guy's
neck and point out that he SHOULD be in love with the nice girl who's spending
so much time with him, instead of dreaming about the girl who might not even
show up. But, then, hindsight is 20/20. If I had a dime for every perfectly
fine girl I ignored when I was busy thinking about some fantasy, I'd have lots
of dimes. So, I can't really fault our young hero, but I can praise Rohmer's
screenplay, which remembers the way youth really is instead of the way he
wishes it was – a lesser screenplay would have our hero successfully bedding
the mysterious strangers he meets on his vacation, and we'd have an example of
wish fulfillment, but not really an example of anything, you know, meaningful.
Anyway, long story short (too late), our
student also has a little fling with another girl who's a bit of a flirt/tease
(Gwenaelle Simon) before the girl he has been waiting for (Aurelia Nolin)
finally shows up. Now he's got a problem – he's gone from no women to three
women, and doesn't know which one to choose.
But, I guess the choice is a red herring.
Whatever our intrepid student ends up choosing isn't as important as the
moments that make up his summer.
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