SUMMER THINGS (UK) aka EMBRASSEZ
QUI VOUS VOUDREZ aka SEE HOW THEY RUN
Year: 2002
UK: UGC Films UK
Cast: Charlotte Rampling, Carole Bouquet, Michel Blanc, Lou Doillon, Jacques Dutronc, Karin Viard, Denis Podalydes, Clotilde Courau, Vincent Elbaz, Sami Bouajila, Gaspard Ulliel, Melanie Laurent, Mathieu Boujenah, Mickaël Dolmen, Barbara Kelsch, Nicolas Briançon, Jade Phan-Gia, Serge Brincat, Helene Pecqueur
Director: Michel Blanc
Country: France
Language: French (English subtitles)
UK: 103 mins
UK Certificate: 15 contains strong language, sex and drug references
UK Release Date: 20 June 2003
Synopsis
Scripted and directed by Michel Blanc, SUMMER THINGS is the sparkling French adaptation of British writer Joseph Connolly's hilarious novel 'Summer Things/Vacances Anglaises'. SUMMER THINGS - a huge hit at the French box office - takes a trip into a world driven by lust, snobbery and adultery as a group of Parisians take their summer break in the Normandy resort of Le Touquet. The holiday soon becomes a comedy of errors with cases of mistaken identity, suicide bids, passionate affairs, a screaming baby and rampant testosterone as they let nothing stand between them and their pursuit of pleasure.
Charlotte Rampling (Swimming Pool) plays Elizabeth, a bourgeois housewife, who plans a trip to the upmarket French seaside inviting her single friend Julie (Clotilde Courau) and baby to join her. When her two-timing husband Bertrand (Jacques Dutronc) remains in Paris pleading work commitments and her rebellious teenage daughter Emilie (Lou Doillon) parties in Chicago, Elizabeth finds herself in for a very different vacation.
Thus the mayhem begins as the ladies are joined by their hard-up neighbours Veró (Karin Viard) and JerOme (Denis Podalydes) and their gangly teenage son Loïc (Gaspard Ulliel). Too poor to stay in the same fancy hotel as Elizabeth, JerOme has booked his family into a rundown caravan site, much to the horror of his status-conscious wife. Meanwhile amongst the fellow guests at Elizabeth's high quality hotel is possessive husband Jean-Pierre (played by Blanc himself), his exasperated wife Lulu (Carole Bouquet), and Maxime (Vincent Elbaz) - a serial womaniser understandably keen not to reveal his marital status.
As the various characters fall in and out of love the holiday-makers begin to learn more and more about themselves and each other! Loïc is eager to lose his virginity, Julie is desperately chasing a holiday romance and Elizabeth is wondering whether she's done the right thing to trust the adulterous Bertrand. On the other side of the Atlantic, Elizabeth's daughter Emilie is partying long into the night with Kevin (Matthieu Bouajila) in Chicago, little realising that he has embezzled money from her father's firm to pay for the trip.
As the holiday draws to a close can things go back to how they were before for the holidaymakers?