Summer of 85

The movie so so beautifully heart breaking
i loved alex he was a relatable character which i rarely find I loved this movie

Picture it: Normandy, 1985.

When 18-year-old David (Benjamin Voisin) rescues 16-year-old Alexis (Felix Lefebvre) from a capsized sailboat in stormy waters of the coast of France, the electricity between the boys is immediate – and not just because of the lightning in the sky. Voisin and Lefebvre have an intensely lifelike chemistry that is thoroughly sensual and almost animalistic in David’s aloof pursuit of Alexis. It’s also glaringly immature, despite the depth that Alexis feels. It’s a painfully realistic portrayal of how first true sexual attraction – perhaps love – is completely and utterly overwhelming, to the point of losing yourself to (or within) the object of your desire. It’s no coincidence that David has to literally retrieve and return Alexis’ soaked jeans to him after fishing him out of the ocean.

The contrast between what the boys bring to the relationship is stark; Alexis is nearly cherubic in his innocence and frantic desperation to be chosen, while David is extremely conformable with who he is and in going after what he wants – he’s just hot and cool, and Alexis becomes enraptured in everything having to do with him. The boys are also at different points in their lives: Alexis is handling a decision on whether to continue with school or to begin work (with plenty of input from his parents), while David has already taken over his late father’s shop with his mother. Even while they begin to form their relationship, there’s a sense that David is circling Alexis, pulling him into an orbit that he’s all too willing to fall into. After their first sexual experience together (and perhaps Alexis’ first at all) things escalate quickly; Alexis becomes completely lost within his obsessive love for David, while David enjoys his time with Alexis, but treats him as a shiny new toy that can be just as easily forgotten as it was discovered. Both boys are fully-formed and complex, and watching their building frustrations with one another come to a head is really impressive in both writing and performance.

It’s no secret that David ends up dead a little more than halfway through the movie. Alexis tells us via narration as the movie flashes back and forth between pre- and post-mortem. He’s a young writer who has a fascination with death; not exactly revolutionary, but troubling when he’s being investigated for his potential involvement in David’s death. While I think this movie does great work unearthing self-discovery through losing yourself to another person, and investigating freedom through loss, I feel that I’m obligated to point out the “Bury Your Gays” Trope happening here. (Former listeners of the podcast and readers of the blog know that this is a constant frustration of mine, still happening currently with the likes of All of Us Strangers.) Alexis needed to experience heartrending loss to then experience the personal growth that we see by the end of this movie, but I’m not convinced that the loss needed to be through death.

Summer of ‘85 is a coming-of-age movie wrapped in a warm, grainy 80’s aesthetic that has a lot to say about first love, sexual discovery, and the pursuit of what we desire (for better or for worse). If you can forgive it for being an example of the aforementioned trope, which I encourage, it’s a heartbreaker that will leave you reminiscing about falling hard and fast, and wondering about how quickly we move along – and who gets hurt along the way.

Fucked me up for so long I love this movie, broke my heart

The secret love they are in it is my favorite im in love with this scenes. Some scenes was same with amelie and some cast was same with amelie :')

this movie didn't quite hit like it was supposed to but surely that was because of language barriers, besides even the story is not that extremely enticing. To be honest, the only nice bit was the part David get the other dude in a room with him.

Adolescent love. Passionate, obsessive, fleeting. The love told by a teenager, sometimes creating moments that seem like a fantasy. "Since I started writing, I became a character myself." Ozon seduced by story, although the story is free, it does not belong to anyone, like David. Love and death, united by the tragedy of an inseparable bond. "I am dying, forever crying, (...) to be near you, to be free".

Never quite packed the punch I expected...except perhaps in one scene near the end...but its still a good film, with a story of first love that will be familiar to many of us.

Finally, Ozon does what he does best: not do what he normally does.
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_Summer of 85_ doesn't capture the feeling of an epoch as much as he thinks, but it does tell a good story and avoids the Ozon layer of pretentious intellectualism that smothers many of his films.
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This tale of two young men sharing a summer on the Normandy coast still finds ways to say something new even if it's been said a thousand times before.

It's a decent movie and I'm glad I watched it but I feel like it lost its way towards the end and didn't have the emotional impact I was expecting.