Summer of 85 (2020)

Summer of 85 is a 2020 French romantic drama directed by François Ozon, adapted from Aidan Chambers’ novel Dance on My Grave. The film is both a nostalgic coming-of-age tale and a bittersweet love story, infused with Ozon’s signature mix of sensuality, melancholy, and psychological complexity. Set in the coastal town of Normandy during the mid-1980s, it follows 16-year-old Alexis (Félix Lefebvre) as he experiences the thrill of first love and the sting of inevitable loss.

The story begins with Alexis, a solitary teenager fascinated by death, whose life changes when his small sailboat capsizes during a sudden storm. He is rescued by 18-year-old David Gorman (Benjamin Voisin), a confident, free-spirited young man whose charm and energy are intoxicating. What begins as gratitude quickly blossoms into an intense friendship and romance over the course of a single summer. Ozon captures their relationship in a haze of sunlight, ocean breezes, and youthful abandon, making the brief weeks they share feel timeless and all-consuming.

However, the film is framed with an air of mystery from the outset, as Alexis narrates the story in retrospect while under police investigation. Early hints suggest that David’s fate is tragic, and the narrative structure moves back and forth between the euphoric days of summer and the darker, inevitable consequences. This dual timeline builds tension while allowing Ozon to explore how memory is colored by love, regret, and grief.

One of the film’s most striking elements is its visual style. Cinematographer Hichame Alaouie uses a rich, warm color palette to evoke the saturated tones of 1980s cinema, heightening the sense of nostalgia. The seaside landscapes of Normandy are captured with both romanticism and a tinge of foreboding, mirroring the film’s emotional trajectory. The soundtrack, which includes Rod Stewart’s “Sailing” and The Cure’s “In Between Days,” further anchors the film in its time period and amplifies its bittersweet mood.

Thematically, Summer of 85 examines the intensity and volatility of adolescent passion. Alexis, younger and more impressionable, views the relationship as a defining, almost eternal bond. David, more experienced and impulsive, treats love as something fleeting and tied to the thrill of the moment. Their differences in maturity and outlook create underlying tension, and as jealousy, desire, and insecurity creep in, their romance begins to fracture. Ozon also weaves in questions of fate, destiny, and the transformative power of love—whether brief or enduring.

Performances by Lefebvre and Voisin are central to the film’s emotional impact. Lefebvre captures Alexis’s vulnerability and devotion, while Voisin imbues David with magnetic charm and underlying unpredictability. Their chemistry makes the highs feel euphoric and the lows devastating. Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, as David’s eccentric mother, adds another layer to the story, providing moments of both humor and poignancy.

Critics praised Summer of 85 for its tender, authentic portrayal of young love and its refusal to shy away from the darker consequences of emotional intensity. While the film carries a sense of nostalgia, it avoids sentimentality, instead presenting love as something beautiful precisely because of its fragility.

Ultimately, Summer of 85 is about the way certain summers—and certain loves—leave an indelible mark. It’s a film that lingers in the heart, much like the memory of a warm, sunlit day shadowed by the knowledge that it could never last.