Customer Reviews

Summer House [VHS]

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This movie is a mysterious little number starring Jeanne Moreau, an excellent French actress with many decades of remarkable work on her resume. She essentially carries the movie in a laughable, moving and over-the-top character. The story is a little confusing on first viewing (due to flashbacks to Egypt that are a little hard to follow, at first), but stick with it. If you like strong, repressed and hopeful characters mixed into a story of lost love and an expectation of a lackluster future that needs to be fought by a soon-to-be married woman, this might appeal to you. One reviewer expected Enchanted April and wrote a horrible review about this movie, based upon that expectation. The two movies are radically different, and that reviewer missed the mark. Recommendations given by Amazon that "if you like this, you might like that" do not mean to imply the movies are of the same exact nature. It only means to imply that it is of the same general format, like one mafia movie to another. Please ignore that negative review. It is completely without merit. Give this movie a try, if you can get it and especially if you enjoy the incomparable Jeanne Moreau.

Charming story of a friendship between an older woman with a past and a repressed younger woman who fears being trapped in a conventional life. The character Lily (Jeanne Moreau) is unforgettable. Excellent British cast. Similar in feeling to "Tea With Mussolini" and "Enchanted April".

When Mother Joseph makes this statement to the nineteen-year-old Margaret, she could not have appreciated the irony that in just a few months, Margaret would be planning to marry Syl, a forty-year-old, pompous dolt whom she does not love. Emotionally devastated by something that happened to her in Egypt, where she recently spent six months, the devout Margaret is naïve and pliable, allowing her divorced mother Monica to make all the wedding plans. When a school friend of her mother's, the half-Egyptian Lili arrives for the wedding "festivities," she completely upsets the status quo but offers a lifeline to Margaret. Loud, flamboyant, colorful, and exhausting, Lili plans to give Margaret a wedding gift that she will never forget.

Based on Alice Thomas Ellis's trilogy, The Summer House, of which Clothes in the Wardrobe is the first novel (followed by Skeleton in the Cupboard and Fly in the Ointment), Director Waris Hussein's film captures the same wry tone and ironic humor for which Ellis's novels are noted. Here the contrasts between the characters, their expectations, and their attitudes are visual as well as verbal, with color playing a major role. The naïve and pliable Margaret (Lena Headey) wears gray throughout, and her mother Monica (Julie Walters) and Syl's mother (Joan Plowright) also wear dull, subdued colors, their homes reflecting the same color palettes. When their friend, the red-haired whirlwind named Lili arrives, she is full of color, wearing exotic jewelry, daring to be different, and delighting in shocking the staid community of Croyden.

Filmed on location in Egypt and the English countryside, the photography is gorgeous, contrasting the stultifying claustrophobia of Margaret's relationship with Syl and her life in Croyden, with the open vistas and erotic freedom she enjoyed in Egypt. Ellis's thematic exploration of love and sex, God and sin, and life and death is developed here through symbols, the characters' sometimes ironic references to the church and God, and through Margaret's sometimes unexplained nightmares and daydreams of her life in Egypt. (These play a major role in the book's conclusion, where they are resolved.)

Moreau, as Lily, is as flamboyant as it is possible to be, and she dominates the action in ways both amusing and thought-provoking. Plowright, Syl's mother, with secrets of her own, does not want the marriage to take place, and her addled state, especially when Lili gets her tipsy, is both amusing and poignant. Julie Walters, as Margaret's mother, is less sympathetic--a woman pushing her own agenda for her own reasons, and at any cost, though she reveals some of her own problems, too. Lena Headey, as Margaret, is suitably vacant--emotionally destroyed and therefore pliable--a girl difficult to identify with because she has made herself a cipher.

A wonderful film which honors and reflects the tone and style of Ellis's novels, this social comedy is visually exciting at the same time that it offers food for thought. A terrific BBC film! n Mary Whipple

A very funny little movie. The ending could never have happened in a Hollywood production . . it is a classic, stereotypical French gem. Everyone gets their up-commance. Jeanne Moreau is perfectly cast and is a delight to watch. See it when you want something to smile at, or to laugh with.

It is a while since I saw this film last but it is quite precious to me.
There is not a flawed performance in it. What a cast!! The poor dismal suburban english get quite a serve. The english have always been good at sending themselves up. Jean Moreau's irrepresible character(Lily)comes from afar to attend a wedding only to save the day by getting strangely caught up in events. Selfless abandon and disturbing exotic influences dispel stifling hipocracy. Quite a spiritual movie in its own way! No truly and much more subtle than it appears.

This movie is so priceless in so many ways, it's a crime that it's not out on DVD. It's a pity its considered "little"; maybe in futre decades, it will become "big."

I've read the novel that this is based on, and I actually like the film bette!! Not that the novel isn't good. The movie, hoever, manages not only to cover the same ground more efficiently, but it packs in some extra nuances. And the way Joan Plowright and Jean Moreau both manage to play decades off their real ages is extremely impressive. And Julie Walters pulls off being impressively stupid.

One caveat: Jeanne Moreau's character is supposed to be English, and she clearly isn't. This means that once in a while it's hard to tell what she's supposed to be saying. . .

This little sleeper is so well-scripted that I watch it again and again. I WISH it had made its way to DVD. Jeanne Moreau's lines and necklaces make you want to rush right out and become old and outrageous, and the great scenes are between Moreau and Plowright. When those two get drunk together, it's such a hoot and the ending is so over the top you can't believe it's an English film. The rich atmosphere created by veteran character actors, scenery and writing never fails to restore me. BUT, what the heck is the French-lesson-lover saying to the flegmatic engenue when she sees him with the dead body of the gypsy? I've looked at several versions with the volume up to max' and I can't catch it. Anybody know? I adore a lot of films (Babette's Feast, Enchanted April, Delicatessan, Amelie), but this one delights me.

If you are a woman and of retirement age, you will be able to appreciate this movie to the fullest, catching every innuendo and sly aside. When you laugh, which you will a lot, it will be a hearty laugh because you will be laughing in part at yourself.

Since I am a great fan of both Jeanne Moreau and Joan Plowright, this movie is a delight to watch. The two actresses play wickedly off one another -- one all smiles and charm, the other -- well, you can probably guess who is which, but you must watch it. Full of twists and surprises, with unexpected depth at times. The ending is perfect! I saw this movie in the theater years ago, forgot its title, but finally tracked it down. I could not locate it at any of the rental places, and it's not yet in DVD, unfortunately.

This film has a great cast and I expected it to be an amusing and slightly whacky comedy of manners. I found it to be disappointingly otherwise. Apparently, Egypt seems to have the same rather unsettling effect on the British as India did in such films as The Jewel in the Crown (way, way better than this story) and Passage to India (ditto). Certainly, the young bride-to-be herein was unhinged by her experiences there, to such an extent that she returns to England and stupifyingly agrees to marry the jerk next door. This whole concept, which is basic to the story, is so completely mind-boggling that I couldn't get past it, despite the interesting, and in most cases, excellent character portrayals of the mothers of the espoused couple (Julie Walters and the wonderful Joan Plowright), the visiting eccentric aging sexpot friend (Jeanne Morreau, a little over the top), the sexpot's husband, the idiotic bridegroom, and assorted friends and relatives who show up in anticipation of the wedding from hell. It is a rather peculiar movie which seems somehow dated and precocious at the same time, but unfortunately, to me, did not amuse or really entertain--I found myself wondering how much longer the boozy comradarie of Plowright's and Morreau's scenes could keep the strained plot going. Not long enough.