Best movie of this year hands down!

I love this movie so much

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

A Summer's Tale, or the French "Conte d'été"... wonder if it has the same double entendré en francias. Gaspard is vacationing by the sea before starting his new engineer job, and he hopes to meet up with the girl he had known before. He is head over heels for her, or at least the idea of her, and pines for her. Of course he meets up with a local girl, who may or may not be just a friend... and suddenly, there's yet more opportunities and connections in the picture. This story starts out as a lesson in bad timing; you meet someone and have immediate sparks, but you are not completely available and open to the new acquaintance. This part of the adventure spoke to me personally, as I was in the same position. Then, things get more complicated, and Gaspard is more of a player than he let on originally. The local girl Margot is brutally honest, and patient, up to a point. She tells it like it is, and doesn't play games, which Gaspard admires. Now it's all up to Gaspard... who will he choose? How honest will he be with his friends and lovers? Fun, interesting, intellectual story of relationships, honesty, missed connections. Very well done. One of the "Stories of Four Seasons" by Éric Rohmer, who passed away in 2010. Well written, well directed. Currently showing on Fandor Channel. Stars Melvil Poupaud as Gaspard.

Eric Rohmer's characters are mostly intellectuals, and mostly not so bright. On one hand, this is to Rohmer's credit, since it's realistic; on the other hand, the rarer characters with more penetrating intelligence (as in, especially, "My Night at Maude's") are nicer to listen to. Rohmer's characters love to yak on about ideas, art, and their feelings. The talk, on the most literal level, is generally unpersuasive, but relationships are formed through enjoyment of conversation, and character (not limited to vanity) is revealed via defensiveness and posturing."A Summer's Tale" follows twenty-something Gaspard during his summer vacation at a seaside resort town in Brittany. The people in the movie have fewer blind spots than most Rohmer characters, but not fewer difficulties. For a theme song, I'd suggest Weird Al Yankovic's "Good Enough For Now." The girl Gaspard had planned to meet alternately blows him off and strings him along. Another girl he meets, with whom there is palpable chemistry, has a distant boyfriend she doesn't seem very attached to. He vacillates on a third he is not crazy about but who bluntly conveys that she would take him. Gaspard is turned down twice for a romantic relationship (though not told to get lost entirely), and does the turning down once.The interactions exhibit a believable mixture of genuine affection, indecision, and awkwardness. Rough edges are not glossed over as they might be by romanticism or in recollection. These might have been ingredients for a dull virtuous accuracy. But "A Summer's Tale" moves at a good pace, turns in the story feel natural and mostly not inevitable, and the whole is affecting and memorable.

This is about a guy and the three girls he is seeing during summer in the French seaside. He seems unable or unwilling to be clear about his emotional life. So do the girls, each in their own way. This is a movie with lots of talking, and not much high intensity. You do get some uneasy scenes, and it does manage to get you curious about the outcome: who will he eventually choose? I suppose the director wanted to do a movie about the confused feelings of some young people of today. Anyway, the actors are beautiful, and so is the seashore. I found it, in the end, quite uplifting.

Gaspard, played by Melvil Poupaud, is a song writer, a good-looking butdull young man, a gauche loner with a flat voice and an inexpressiveface who comes to this delightful holiday island of Dinard off theBrittany coast to await the arrival of his `sort-of' girl friend, whodemonstrates how much she loves him by keeping him waiting for twoweeks. During those two weeks, however, he finds two other girl friendsor rather they find him. It must be his good-looks, it can't beanything else. First he is picked up in a restaurant by Margot, awaitress, who turns out not to be a waitress but an Ethnologist, justhelping out her aunt who owns the restaurant. Obviously such a brightand intelligent girl could not be merely working-class!Amanda Langlet, who plays Margot and who appeared ten years earlier inRohmer's `Pauline at the Beach.' is clearly the star of this film. Muchof the enjoyment of the film is derived from being in the company ofthis vivacious girl and being allowed to eavesdrop on her talk withGaspard about love and relationships as they roam in the bright sunlightaround this lovely French sea-side resort and the countryside beyond.She is such a very warm and sympathetic listener that it is difficult tounderstand why he doesn't fall in love with her. Why she doesn't fall inlove with him is easier to understand. (you ask yourself; is this man avery good actor or a very bad one?) He makes a couple of inept attemptsto move the relationship forward but is repulsed; she wants onlyfriendship - and you feel he is lucky to get that - while she awaits thereturn of her Anthropologist boy-friend who is away in South America.Gaspard's dullness is made obvious when she takes him to hear an oldsailor sing sea-shanties; her face so eager and enrapt as she listensintently; his face, alongside, so lifeless.She encourages him to take up with Solene, played by Gwenaelle Simon inher first film, a friend of her's who they meet at a dance, but when hedoes, she is jealous, jealous of their friendship she says but secretlyhurt that he now thinks of her as only a friend.His relationship with Solene seems idyllic at first, they seemmarvelously happy and well suited to each other. He is accepted warmlyinto her family, they all go sailing together and have a merrysing-a-long to one of his songs. But then, sadly, her true nature shows;she becomes aggressive and demanding, insisting that he take her to theisland of Quessant or their relationship is at an end. And now Lena, his`sort-of' girl friend, played by Aurelia Nolin, appears and insists thathe take her instead. He must now choose.Rohmer's films are never plot-dependent; he prefers to dwell on thecharacters, to bring us into a close, intimate relation with them, whilethey reveal themselves in talk. And when the characters are asattractive as Margot