After premiering in competition at the Cannes Film Festival last year, Catherine Breillat‘s first film in a decade, “Last Summer,” finally hits US theaters. Granted, it only screens at Angelika Film Center and Film At Lincoln Center in NYC, but after the stir the film caused on the Croisette, New Yorkers should seek it out next month.
Breillat’s made her career on films focusing on taboo subjects, and “Last Summer” is no different. Adapting the 2019 Danish film “Queen Of Hearts,” the latest from the 75-year-old French auteur focuses on an attorney in an unhappy marriage who does the unthinkable: she starts an affair with her seventeen-year-old stepson when her husband leaves on a business trip.
Here’s an official synopsis for “Last Summer,” courtesy of Janus Films:
A remarkably nuanced, radiant Léa Drucker plays Anne, an attorney who has plateaued in her marriage to Pierre, a distracted businessman. His son, troubled seventeen-year-old, Theo, from a previous marriage, has recently returned to Pierre’s ineffectual and despondent care. When Pierre leaves town for a business trip, Anne and Théo — confined under the same roof for the first time — find themselves in the throes of an unexpected and dangerously lustful affair, threatening the stability of the household.
Drucker stars in “Last Summer,” playing the same lead role she did in “Queen Of Hearts.” Olivier Rabourdin and Samuel Kircher also star. Clotilde Courau, Serena Hu, Angela Chen, and Romain Maricau round out the main cast.
Along with directing, Breillat also writes “Last Summer” in collaboration with Pascal Bonitzer. Saïd Ben Saïd produces the film through SBS Productions. Kim Gordon provides music for the film. “Last Summer” is
Any Catherine Breillat film is worth seeking out, but “Last Summer” is the director’s first since 2013’s “Abuse Of Weakness,” and it scored incredibly well with critics at Cannes last year. The Playlist’s review gave it an A, calling the film “devastating because it exposes at the heart of a seemingly normal family a black hole where empathy should be.” Is that enough to entice NYC residents reading to go see it?
“Last Summer” hits Angelika Film Center and Film At Lincoln Center on June 28. Watch the trailer for Breillat’s film below.