''Summer of 85'' (french: Été 85) is a 2020

romantic drama film Romance films or movies involve romantic love stories recorded in visual media for broadcast in theatres or on television that focus on passion (emotion), passion, emotion, and the affectionate romantic involvement of the main characters. Typica ...

written and directed by

François Ozon François Ozon (; born 15 November 1967) is a French film director and screenwriter. Ozon is considered one of the most important modern French filmmakers. His films are characterized by aesthetic beauty, sharp satirical humor and a free-wheeli ...

, partly based on the 1982 novel ''

Dance on My Grave ''Dance on My Grave'' is a 1982 young adult novel by British author Aidan Chambers. It is the second book in Chamber's six-novel Dance Sequence series. Its full title is ''Dance on My Grave: a life and a death in four parts, one hundred and sevent ...

'' by

Aidan Chambers Aidan Chambers (born 27 December 1934) is a British author of children's and young-adult novels. He won both the British Carnegie Medal and the American Printz Award for '' Postcards from No Man's Land'' (1999). For his "lasting contributio ...

. It stars Félix Lefebvre and

Benjamin Voisin Benjamin Voisin (born December 24, 1996) is a French actor. For his role as David Gorman in the dramatic film '' Summer of 85'', he was nominated for the César Award Cesar, César or Cèsar may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * ''C� ...

. It was released in France on 14 July 2020 by Diaphana Distribution.

Plot

In the summer of 1985 in Normandy, Alexis (Alex), a 16-year-old who is fascinated by death, goes out to sea. A thunderstorm forms, causing his boat to capsize, but he is rescued by David, who is eighteen years old. After this incident, they grow very close and Alexis ends up helping out at David's family shop. The two end up having a relationship in secret, however, David claims he is bored and has an affair with Alexis' friend Kate. Alexis gets very angry and confronts David. They get into a fight and Alex throws a rock at David. Luckily he dodges the rock, but Alexis wrecks the shop and runs out. David chases after Alexis, but ends up dying in a motorcycle crash. Alex, feeling guilty, decides to carry out the pact formed between them: to go and dance on the grave of the one who dies first. Alex gets arrested while doing so, but is pitied by the judge and only charged with 140 hours of community service and a strong recommendation to visit a psychiatrist. The film alternates between scenes of the two boys' relationship before David's death, and scenes of the aftermath of the accident, in which Alex finds healing in writing his story for his trial on his literature teacher's recommendation.

Cast

* Félix Lefebvre as Alexis Robin *

as David Gorman * Philippine Velge as Kate *

Valeria Bruni Tedeschi Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, also written Bruni-Tedeschi (; born 16 November 1964), is an Italian-French actress, screenwriter and film director. Her 2013 film, ''A Castle in Italy,'' was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. ...

as David's mother *

Melvil Poupaud Melvil Poupaud (born 26 January 1973) is a French actor, author and filmmaker. Career Poupaud's first appearance was, as a child, in Raúl Ruiz (director), Raúl Ruiz's 1983 film ''City of Pirates''. He met Ruiz through his mother, Chantal Poupau ...

as Lefèvre *

Isabelle Nanty Isabelle Nanty (born 21 January 1962) is a French actress, film and theatre director and screenwriter. Career She was a teacher for several years at the Cours Florent, and then received a nomination for the César Award for Most Promising Actres ...

as Alexis's mother * Laurent Fernandez as Alexis's father * Aurore Broutin as a teacher *

Bruno Lochet Bruno Lochet (born 18 October 1959) is a French actor. He is best known for playing in the cult TV series '' Les Deschiens'' (1993–2002), in which he played alongside Yolande Moreau Yolande Moreau (born 27 February 1953) is a Belgian comedi ...

as Bernard * Yoann Zimmer as Luc * Antoine Simoni as Chris

Production

In June 2019, it was announced that Félix Lefebvre, Benjamin Voisin and Philippine Velge had joined the cast of the film, with

directing from a screenplay he wrote.

Principal photography Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production. Personnel Besides the main film personnel, such as actor ...

began in May 2019.

Release

The film was set to premiere at the

Cannes Film Festival The Cannes Festival (; french: link=no, Festival de Cannes), until 2003 called the International Film Festival (') and known in English as the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films o ...

in May 2020, prior to its cancellation due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

. It was released in France on 14 July 2020. In September 2020,

Music Box Films Music Box Films is a distributor of foreign and independent film in theatrical, DVD/Blu-ray, and video-on-demand markets in the United States. Based in Chicago, Music Box Films is independently owned and operated by the Southport Music Box Corpor ...

acquired U.S. distribution rights to the film. It screened at the

2020 Toronto International Film Festival The 2020 Toronto International Film Festival, the 45th event in the Toronto International Film Festival series, was held from September 10 to 21, 2020. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Toronto, the festival took place primarily on an online stream ...

on 13 September 2020. It was released in the United States on 18 June 2021.

Reception

Critical reception

''Summer of 85'' holds approval rating on review aggregator website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, based on reviews, with an average of . The site's critical consensus reads, "While not François Ozon's best work, ''Summer of 85'' serves as a beguiling, bittersweet ode to teen love and its lingering after-effects." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, the film holds a rating of 64 out of 100, based on 20 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

References

External links

* * * {{François Ozon 2020 films 2020 LGBT-related films 2020 romantic drama films 2020s coming-of-age drama films 2020s French-language films 2020s teen drama films 2020s teen romance films Belgian coming-of-age drama films Belgian LGBT-related films Belgian romantic drama films Belgian teen drama films Coming-of-age romance films French coming-of-age drama films French LGBT-related films French romantic drama films French teen drama films French-language Belgian films Films about death Films about writers Films based on British novels Films based on young adult literature Films directed by François Ozon Films set in 1985 Films set in Normandy Films shot in Normandy Films with screenplays by François Ozon Gay-related films Juvenile sexuality in films LGBT-related coming-of-age films LGBT-related romantic drama films Teen LGBT-related films 2020s French films