A Summer’s Tale
Éric Rohmer
1996 | 113 min | Colour | Digital
French with English subtitles
The third film in Rohmer’s sublime Four Seasons cycle reunites the veteran auteur with Amanda Langlet, the sun-kissed teen heroine of Pauline at the Beach, for another beguiling, beachside tale of jeune amour. Gaspard (Melvil Poupaud), one of the few male protagonists in late Rohmer, is a young, handsome, completely self-absorbed musician holidaying in Brittany for the summer. Awaiting the arrival of his not-quite girlfriend Léna – more a “habit of coincidence,” he clarifies – Gaspard begins courting the affections of sweet, smart, ethnology student Margot (a never-better Langlet), and then Margot's smitten friend. Léna, of course, shows up, pushing the moppy-haired romancer to choose between his three surprise suitresses. Repartee, per usual in Rohmer, only deflects from the emotional honesty so needed of the snowballing situation.