‘Last Summer’ review: Catherine Breillat grounds her provocative romance with truth and a staggering performance from Léa Drucker | Cannes

For her first feature film in over 10 years, Catherine Breillat made the surprising choice of adapting Queen of Hearts, May El Toukhy’s Danish provocative film, that premiered in 2019 (where it won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize for World Competition – Dramatic) and went on to represent Denmark in the International Language Film Oscar race at the 92nd Academy Awards. But as surprising as her decision is, the material seemed to fit Breillat’s sensibilities as a master provocatrice, who wanted to retell the unraveling story of a respectable woman breaking bad.

Anne (Léa Drucker) is a successful lawyer living peacefully with her husband Pierre in a splendid idyllic house. Because of her incapacity to give birth due to an early abortion, the couple decided to adopt two girls to fill their life with love and purpose. One day, Anne’s stepson Théo (Samuel Kircher) joins the family to live with his father as a result of his latest detention; his arrival puts Anne through a rigid test seeing as she makes big efforts to maintain the stability in her household. 

“He’s mean as hell,” says Pierre, as he describes his son to Anne, who is fascinated by the troublemaking newcomer with charismatic features. Under his spell, the passage to the act was direct, as if it were inevitable, in the Breillat way the beginning of such a relationship should not be done in small doses. Anne realizes that this escapade is an unequivocal mistake but her attraction for the young boy had only just begun.

Last Summer finds Breillat in her most implicit state, which will come as a surprise to her audience, given the expectations placed on her usual approach to sexuality in cinema, whatever the theme, situation or taboos evoked. Breillat goes against all her previous tricks by preventing any graphic representation of nudity, instead balancing out what she hides with her bold treatment of the dubious relationship at the heart of her film. Is Anne in love? Breillat certainly wants to convey this feeling with her large close-ups on her two main characters and their questioning of desire. With him, Anne rediscovers her adolescence in scenes where Lea Kruger plays her as a teenager experiencing her first great love. 

Léa Drucker is staggering in this daring role, where her feelings blend to create a fascinating case study that only Breillat can draw from its development. Drucker trusts her director completely as she navigates her thorny part, knowing her to be incapable of judging her characters, whatever their behavior or reasons. Breillat, in turn, trusts Drucker, giving her the immense freedom to juggle her different states of mind that happen in very short spaces of time; the French actress thus infuses her role with the great energy of an athlete taking part in a long race without knowing how things are going to turn out for her and for the people around her. 

Anne makes no secret of the fact that she still has bad memories of her first time, which adds an important detail to the changing dynamic Breillat imposes on us, and is the primary grounds for this remake. Remaking such a recent film is a risky choice, and Breillat, with her intelligence, knows this and takes into consideration adding her signature touch, which is generally to confine her characters to complex situations. And when has Breillat ever been afraid of risk? The adults in the film, including Anne, who is ironically a lawyer specialized in child protection services cases, think they pass for people with a certain moral integrity, but Breillat makes us understand that even in situations where morality is at stake, they tend to willingly take part in a perverse game. 

Grade: A-

This review is from the 2023 Cannes Film Festival where Last Summer premiered in competition. There is no U.S. distribution at this time.