"Summer of 85," adapted by François Ozon from Aidan Chambers' novel "Dance On My Grave," has a draw almost as strong as David's, conveying the tranquil ambience of Le Tréport, the lovely Normandy village where it was set, including the deeper subterranean emotions of its volatile characters. On July 14, 2020, it was released in theaters. It's a romantic story about first love and sexual awakening, set against the enticing background of France's northwest coast.
Ozon can be stylishly proficient with such challenging subject matter, as he demonstrated with his 2003 thriller "Swimming Pool," but he is also critical of adhering to lascivious pulp, as he did with the reprehensible "Young and Beautiful." Admittedly, with "Summer of 85," he delivers the right visual language for the content, eliciting both Éric Rohmer's summery reveries and psychological suspense. And he's found two capable young performers to carry a picture that is almost entirely dependent on their chemistry—which can shift from compassion to savagery on the fly. Voisin, with his long jaw and piercing eyes, plays a plausible would-be bad boy, flashing a switchblade comb and riding his motorbike too recklessly through French rural roads. Lefebvre's shift from blond innocence to bruised traumatization is equally convincing. "Summer of 85" is a period piece, and Ozon wisely avoids placing cheesy quotation marks all across the era: despite the acid-washed denim and songs by Bananarama and the Cure, the film mainly avoids over-referencing. He's less effective in establishing Alexis' fixation on mortality, which represents the film's climax moment. Beyond a few glimpses of Egyptian hieroglyphics and his alleged obsession with Jewish burial practices, we're supposed to accept his poignant enthusiasm with faith based on what Alexis tells us rather than what Ozon exhibits. It brings us back to that summer's heat; New Order on the soundtrack is only one of the nods to the time, indicating that the '85 of the title is to be taken literally, but also as a measure of distance: a sensation of vintage romanticizing is incorporated into the story's already luxuriant sensuality. During an incident at sea, David saves Alexis, and afterward, the two instantly become attached. What occurs is what you'd anticipate—what you'd want to happen, with all the warmth and peace of mind that comes with loving. It's a realization that, one holds out hope, will treat him well in the future now that David has opened the door to who he actually is. The film has dug itself a hole with the deceptive framing scheme, and the final act feels like a ruse, exposing Alex's "crime" to be everything but. While the film's middle half is the most endearing—a type of prolonged montage wherein the young men hesitantly explore the bounds of their relationship—it's the concluding length that places "Summer of 85" fully within Ozon's signature style. Drawn in by the overwhelming sense of mystery of whatever it is that earns David the title of "future corpse," in Alexis's telling, but I'm also drawn in by the internal conflicts in their lives: the teacher encouraging Alexis to become an author amidst his father's working-class hyper focus, for instance, or the continued attempts of the investigator, in the film's other half, to make it all make complete sense.
Conversely, the emotions surrounding their relationships with one another is frequently richer and more adventurous. There might be a representation of this film that would seem absurd because so many of its highs are overshadowed by such depressing lows. But Ozon's focus on the genuineness of it all—the comfortable sensations of verbal exchange, the commonplace reality of teenage pleasure—makes the extremes seem more genuine and significant.
What in the film follows is a standard teenage romance, stylishly mounted and sensitively played in reality. It understands the risks of giving your love to another, and plays those risks to a shocking and inevitable conclusion. The sense of loss or betrayal, the anxiety, the inflated promises, the mixture of adult feelings and childish understanding it perfectly displays are all part of the teenaged years, regardless of one's sexual orientation.
There’s strong work from both characters but Ozon doesn’t give their characters enough distinguishable color and so there’s a limit to how much they can bring to the table. Unlike the woozy love at its center, Summer of 85 doesn’t haunt in the way that it should. It fades when it should burn. At the same time, Summer of 85 is also a wise, heart-wrenching story that looks at the unexpected moments that make life worth living, as well as the excruciatingly painful experiences that shape us into adults. Despite some distracting contrivances. Summer of 85 balances intriguingly but a little too murkily on a fulcrum of unreliable narration, and it becomes impossible to tell whether Ozon means us to take the story at face value or undercutting Alex's own melodramatic pronouncements. In the end, Summer Of 85 is about the idea of romance more than it is an actual romance, and on that level it succeeds almost too well, leaving one wishing for something more substantial.
As someone who has previously reviewed the deeply complex screenplays of Ozon's previous masterpieces, this degree of craftsmanship may appear to be a letdown. Nevertheless, speaking from the perspective of an infatuated adolescent who is naïve to romance, curiosity, and heartbreak, it makes perfect sense. In fact, Lefevre explicitly states that Alexis is not the finest writer he's ever taught, regardless of the fact that the young man shows potential. At the end, it's a story that's oftentimes overwhelming and a bit devastating to watch, but it's also real and sincere about adolescence in a manner that's rare in middle-aged filmmakers' works about teens. "Summer of 85" tends to come off as melodramatic rather than authentically dramatic.
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