Working on their farm in the south of France one day, a father wonders aloud when his daughter might find a husband and get married. The daughter, Delphine, replies that she doesn’t want to get married. “You can’t be alone forever,” her father says softly. “Loneliness is a terrible thing.” This opening salvo sets the stage for “Summertime” (“La belle saison”), Catherine Corsini’s tender lesbian love story set in early 1970s France.
After a break-up with the girl in town she’s been secretly seeing, Delphine (Izïa Higelin) leaves her small farm to move to Paris. There she encounters Carole (Cécile De France), an intense feminist who pulls Delphine into her orbit. They attend meetings with other feminists, run breathlessly through the city streets and grow closer by the minute. Delphine longs for Carole, but things aren’t so simple: Carole is in a seemingly committed relationship with a man she lives with. One night, Delphine attempts to kiss Carole, which doesn’t go over so well. But Delphine continues her pursuit, and before long the women’s friendship has blossomed into a passionate love affair. Just as the romance is beginning, however, Delphine’s father (Jean-Henri Compere) suffers a stroke, and she must return home to her farm. Carole follows after her, and the two women struggle to understand where their relationship is heading while fending off accusatory looks from the townsfolk and Delphine’s mother (Noémie Lvovsky).
Corsini directs with a gentle hand, giving her two lead actresses plenty of room to breathe and grow as the film unfolds languidly. Carole, as played by De France, shows massive amounts of confidence, yet she’s caught off guard when the relationship with Delphine begins. Quiet, with a charming smile and dark eyes, Higelin’s remarkable portrayal of Delphine starts off shy and reserved until she first spots Carole — then she knows exactly what she wants. “The other girls move faster,” her father says about her in the beginning of the film, and that slow deliberateness is apparent in every step and movement Higelin makes. The relationship between the two women is flipped on its head when they head back to Delphine’s family farm. So sure of the relationship in Paris, Delphine grows more guarded around her parents and the people she grew up with, and Higelin wonderfully conveys the internal conflict warring inside her. Meanwhile, Carole impresses and bonds with Delphine’s mother.
Cinematographer Jeanne Lapoirie bathes the idyllic countryside in dappled sunlight, employing an almost imperceptible tint over the lens to invoke the faded 1970s setting. Scene after scene unfolds with beauty and grace and, most of all, passion. The relationship between Delphine and Carole never once feels disingenuous or staged, and the highs and lows of the romance are all conveyed with a deft hand. It all works so well that it’s a bit jarring when the film takes a sudden left turn of an ending that gives way to an epilogue. This wrap-up doesn’t quite connect the way Corsini and co-writer Laurette Polmanss intended (it feels like there’s a beat or two missing), but this misstep isn’t enough to rob “Summertime” of the emotional power it’s earned up until then. Unsentimentally romantic, there’s enough grace in “Summertime” to keep you enraptured. [B+]