A child rights lawyer has a romantic relationship with her 17-year-old stepson.
From the first scene of Last summerremake of the Danish film Queen of Hearts (2019), by May el-Toukhi, Catherine Breillat clearly shows how skillfully the central character can hide her emotions, express herself with detachment, find the right words to manipulate her interlocutor. This character is Anne (the masterful Léa Drucker), a lawyer defending young victims of sexual assault. Knowing the law perfectly, she knows how to get into the minds of the attackers in order to prepare her victims before the trial.
In everyday life, Anne leads an idyllic existence with Pierre (Olivier Rabourdin, with a wonderful restraint), a successful businessman, and their two adopted daughters, Serena and Angela (the charming Serena Hu and Angela Chen). Anne also has a beautiful relationship with her sister Mina (Clotilde Courau, faded), even if the latter envies her success.
Then comes Théo (Samuel Kirchner, animal), Pierre’s 17-year-old son. Expelled from his school in Geneva, where he lives with his mother, Théo is forced to live with his father’s family, whom he blames for abandoning him. Hiding from Pierre one of Théo’s dirty tricks, Anne develops a bond with her stepson. This rapprochement will soon lead them into each other’s arms.
A far cry from the raw love scenes to which Catherine Breillat has accustomed us (Romance, To my sister !, Anatomy of Hell), those of Last summer focus on faces rather than bodies. The actors’ features convey desire, abandonment, and ecstasy; the director even draws inspiration from a painting by Caravaggio, Mary Magdalene in ecstasy.
In the bright light of Jeanne Lapoirie (Benedettaby Paul Verhoeven), the camera lingers more on the enjoyment of the young boy, who evokes the innocent Tadzio of Death in Veniceby Visconti, rather than that of the mature woman. However beautiful and sunny the way of staging this love story may be, the relationship remains forbidden.
In her desire to transform the screenplay by Maren Louise Käehne and May el-Toukhi into a more complex story, with the complicity of Pascal Bonitzer, the filmmaker does not seek to shock the viewer, but to push him to his limits by slipping into the skin of the two protagonists. Nor does she try to diminish Anne’s gestures or find excuses for her.
Here, the lawyer is no longer a predator and the first kiss is exchanged by mutual consent, quite naturally. However, better than anyone, Anne knows that this gesture, although apparently consensual, is inappropriate, inappropriate. Not only is she specialized in children’s rights, but she herself, as she reveals to Théo in veiled terms, was the victim of sexual abuse in her youth.
When the truth threatens to be revealed in broad daylight, Anne, as icy as a Hitchcockian blonde, becomes again the person she was in the first scene. But Théo reveals that he knows how to read her game, facing his father who no longer knows who to believe. If Catherine Breillat changes the ending of the original story, her conclusion, where we measure the extent of the consequences that lie, manipulation and hypocrisy bring, proves to be just as powerful. And terrifying.
Indoors
Drama of manners
Last summer
Catherine Breillat
Léa Drucker, Samuel Kircher, Olivier Rabourdin
1 h 44