Last Summer
Carnal Knowledge: The Films of Catherine Breillat
June 21 - 27, 2024
Catherine Breillat proves that she is not through toying with viewers’ comfort levels with her incendiary new drama starring Léa Drucker as Anne, a middle-aged lawyer who inexplicably finds herself sexually drawn to her husband’s estranged 17-year-old son Théo.
Ends Thursday!
One of the world’s most consistently provocative filmmakers for nearly 50 years, Catherine Breillat proves with her incendiary, compelling new drama that she is not through toying with viewers’ comfort levels. In Last Summer, Léa Drucker stars as Anne, a lawyer who specializes in cases of sexual consent and parental custody. Seemingly happily married to kind-hearted businessman Pierre (Olivier Rabourdin) with adopted twin daughters, Anne inexplicably finds herself drawn to Pierre’s estranged 17-year-old son Théo (Samuel Kircher) after the boy returns home to live with them. Embarking on a passionate affair with the teenager, Anne all too willingly thrusts herself into a maelstrom of attraction, intimidation, and manipulation. Breillat’s incisive screenplay—cannily altered from the Danish erotic thriller Queen of Hearts on which it’s based—elegantly surveys the situation’s extreme power dynamics while giving the brilliant Drucker the chance to create a character who exists entirely within her own moral boundaries. A Sideshow/Janus Films release.
Recommended Film Comment reading:
- The Film Comment Podcast: Last Summer (Cannes 2023)
- Interview: Catherine Breillat on Abuse of Weakness (2014)
- Film of the Week: Abuse of Weakness
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An extraordinarily complex inquiry into desire and power.
—Manohla Dargis, The New York Times
Critic's Pick! Seductively empathetic.
—David Erlich, IndieWire
A master class in emotional precision.
—Matthew Eng, Reverse Shot
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