Summer Lovers (1982)

(In French, On TV, April 2019) You can sometimes tell a lot about a film by looking at when and where it’s broadcast. I didn’t know Summer Lovers at all, but it was being broadcast in the same weekly time-slot that the French-Canadian TV channel had used for other steamy movies such as 9 ½ weeks and Last Tango in Paris, so… I knew what to expect, and the film delivered. A sometimes-awkward blend of naughty sex comedy and serious character drama, the film follows the adventures of a disgustingly rich, young, and good-looking American couple as they travel to a Greek island for the summer, and then gradually get caught up in a ménage à trois with a French archeologist. It’s meant to be something of a carefree escapist romp with just enough character drama to make it respectable, but it all falls apart along the way. (Of course, I’m old and grumpy enough to think that the only appeal of a ménage à trois is having one more person to do housework.) The film does feel very much like a male-gaze dominated fantasy: despite a few more serious moments examining the realities of such an arrangement, writer-director Randal Kleiser spends far too much time photographing nude bodies and staging erotic set-pieces to claim otherwise. What’s more, the ending merely kicks the dramatic can past the end credits in order not to commit to anything. Daryl Hannah stars in an early role (as the wife), and the feeling of being in a Greek vacation (complete with an intriguing glimpse at an early-1980s archeological dig) is bolstered with a pop soundtrack (“I’M SO EXCITED!”) that clearly anchors it to a point in time.  The nice Greek countryside can’t quite compensate for a story that borders on annoyance. As a result, Summer Lovers feels flawed, although I can’t really begrudge anyone from enjoying it. After all, you know what you’re getting into when watching a film in the late-night time-slot…