Retrospective: Summertime (Patreon)

Well, that took a turn.

Katie Hepburn was always an underrated dramatic actress. She's celebrated for her dramatic performances, but clearly not enough, because I was thoroughly surprised by where Summertime went. Perhaps I shouldn't have been — David Lean is incapable of directing a movie that isn't an emotional roller coaster. I recently watched Brief Encounter and I felt sick at the end. Oliver Twist made me feel sick too, if only because of Alec Guinness's horrifying portrayal of Fagin.

Summertime is a dark horse candidate for Lean's best film. Katie Hepburn heads to Venice and marinates in it, lulling the audience into a false sense of this being a slow-paced slice of life film. Around the halfway point, it becomes clear that Hepburn's character is extremely emotionally disturbed, fleeing from Something, and unready to deal with anything. She's one of the most unhinged female protagonists in a romcom, and her emotional journey is somewhat agonizing to watch.

This one has a lot of the usual David Lean staples — a lonely cracker travels abroad to discover themself, meets locals ambivalent to Western visitors, and gets broken when they have to face their own fragility. Lean absolutely has some hangups about monogamy which get explored here in fascinating ways. I am obsessed. Go watch it before I say anything else.