There are plenty of good reasons why the summer has emerged as a fitting backdrop (and, in turn, apt metaphor) for coming-of-age stories. Whereas spring suggests renewal and winter retreat, the sun-dappled long days of summer lend themselves quite nicely to tales of unbridled discovery. The sweltering heat allows for a kind of abandon that may well help you discover yourself anew, possibly for the first time. Laura Luchetti’s touching “This Beautiful Summer” may tread familiar ground in that regard, but her handsomely mounted Italian period piece brims with a such playfully coy sensibility that you cannot help but fall for its charms.
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Described as “freely inspired” by Cesare Pavese’s “La bella estate,” Luchetti’s film takes place in Turin over the summer of 1938. At its center is Ginia (a transfixing Yile Yara Vianello), a young woman who has moved away from the countryside with her brother in hopes of a more exciting life. Only when we first meet her, it’s easy to see how she’s sheltered herself into a rather rote routine that does nothing but stifle her. She’s a dutiful worker at a downtown atelier where her punctuality and talent as a seamstress and pattern-maker continually impress her boss. And in her times of leisure, she mostly enjoys the company of her brother and his cadre of friends, all of whom insist on a square kind of life. That is, of course, until she meets Amelia (Deva Cassel).
From the moment this bewitching young woman enters the frame (diving into a lake on whose shores Ginia and her friends are gathered at), Ginia is smitten. Cassel, it’s soon clear, is a wholly magnetic screen presence. For much of “The Beautiful Summer,” you’re constantly aware of how alluring her Amelia can be, whether she’s coyly asking for a cigarette, blithely talking about her nude modeling work or teasing her newfound friend Ginia into ever more daring territory. “She’s not like us,” a friend warns Ginia. “Thank goodness for that,” Ginia fires back.
The friendship the two strike once Amelia recognizes something quite intriguing in those furtive glances the young blond seamstress unwittingly lobs her way, unlocks something within Ginia. As she’s embraced by Amelia’s bohemian artistic milieu, where painters introduce her to the joys of absinthe and a kind of antiestablishment joie de vivre, the more Ginia awakens into a version of herself she was once too shy to explore. But how far will she let herself go before the life she’d made for herself starts crumbling before her?
Set against the backdrop of late 1930s Italy (lovingly re-created by set designer Giancarlo Muselli and interior designer Marco Martucci), where Mussolini speeches on the radio score Ginia’s days (irking her in the process), “The Beautiful Summer” delights precisely for the gentle way it traces that young woman’s bumbling attempt to discover who she may still wish to become. She’s envious of Amelia, who seems so forward and fearless. She wants her, that much is clear. But just as vexingly, she also wants to be her. And in trying to shuttle between those two desires, and acting on what each of them says about her, Ginia stumbles more than she’d dare admit.
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There is, in Luchetti’s moving if overly languid screenplay, the sense that there’s no linear progress to Ginia’s journey. Her heart flutters when she’s near Amelia (as does Francesco Cerasi’s oft-twinkling romantic score), but as she cannot fathom what it is she feels for this newfound friend, she opts at times merely to mirror her. It’s why she keeps insisting she wants to pose nude as Amelia does, thinking that to be gazed at that way will allow her a chance to see herself anew. That is as disconcerting for the young, wily model as it is for Ginia’s brother and friends, as well as for the various bohemian artists Ginia keeps trying to impress, seduce and later avoid.
Even as “The Beautiful Summer” hits familiar beats about same-sex desires, youthful awakenings and artistic ambitions crippled by traditional mores, Luchetti’s film is most rewarding as an acting showcase for Vianello and Cassel. One a budding flower, the other a prickly rose, the actresses imbue Ginia and Amelia with the complexity those young women deserve, offering revealing performances that thrive on stolen gazes and wordless gestures. Moreover, even as its lush production harkens back to more old-fashioned romantic dramas, its sound design (particularly during a sex scene at an artist’s quarters and later still during a joyful dance between the two young women) keeps the film squarely anchored to a contemporary sensibility.
In the end, this is a tender tale befitting its summer trappings. It is wistful and witty, sultry and soothing. But above all, a balm best enjoyed by those thirsting after a coming-of-age tale that while looking at the past is emboldened by our vibrant present and an even more daring vision of the future.
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