Last Summer * * * *

"Hey Mum... "
"Errr, maybe don't call me that."

This is the latest film from French director Catherine Breillat.  She has been around for quite a while.  She's got over twenty feature films to her credit - and all of them controversial apparently.

Aside from being brilliant, Catherine is also  a bit of a scallywag. She wrote her first novel when she was in her teens but when it was published she couldn't go into a store and buy it as it was so sexually explicit it was classified as being not suitable for people under eighteen! 

She was an actress early in her career and had a role in Last Tango in Paris.  Not quite as controversial as Maria Schneider's role, but she was in it.  

Then she turned to directing.

Her first film was based on her own novel and caused just as big a stir.  It was banned for twenty years. Nevertheless she got on with things and kept writing and directing films which were a little more moderate so that they could at least past censorship.  

Catherine Breillat is now in her late seventies and there is nothing in her latest film Last Summer that the censors could take their scissors to. Nevertheless the subject matter is challenging.   Last Summer tells the story of a teenage boy who has a sexual relationship with his step-mother.  It is actually a remake of the Dutch film Queen of Hearts.

Seti in Paris today, Theo's father and his step-mother are successful professional people: She's a lawyer, he's a businessman.  It's a second marriage for his father. 

Teenager Theo had been living with his natural mother but is going off the rails. His father gets the message it's his turn to look after Theo. So he moves into their grand home. 

He gets on very well with their two adopted children who are much younger. They love Theo. But he has a tense relationship with his parents.  His dad has to go away on a business trip, meanwhile step-mum decides she's going to improve things on the home front by getting to know Theo a little better - and boy do they ever get to know each other!

She's more than twice his age.  More than anyone she knows this should not be happening because as a lawyer she frequently prosecutes adults who have taken sexual advantage of vulnerable youngsters.  Yes, the irony is emphasised. 

But Last Summer is not a preachy film. It makes no real judgement on what is going on between these two until a greater "sin" is committed, so that the the lies, duplicity and betrayal of one of them really does leave us in a moral quandary. 

Brilliantly acted and directed with confidence and sensitivity, Last Summer is a fine drama.