This movie had a kind of unique effect. Eric Rohmer's films are famously slow and short on plot. AKA "arthouse favorites." And this one was about an awkward and at times not very likeable young man and his self-inflicted romantic foibles. At one point I even hoped that he might fall into a well or a sinkhole, to make the movie shorter.
But the funny thing about A Summer's Tale is how it resonates (for me, anyway) days after. I don't remember the people as much as the weather, the setting, the beaches and the plain, patient way the human plot was filmed. Maybe the lesson is that we waste time calculating and not being present. Or to quote Jimmie Dale Gilmore, the story was the wave, not the water. And the moments of warmth and kindness in the movie stand out.
And what's cooler than a one-off showing of a slow arthouse flick on a Sunday afternoon in August?
Robert Ebert reviews.
