Summer in February

Having read the book several times, to see the film was an absolute 'must'. It would have been difficult to adapt the whole story to screen, particularly into 100 minutes, the consequence of which, those who have not read the book may not easily grasp the real intricacies and make-up of some of the characters. However, it is a beautiful film, beautifully made. The music and the photography contribute in a magical but powerful way and all the actors play their characters superbly. It was obviously made with passion. It is a haunting and heartbreaking story, one that can be thought provoking. "Summer In February" is an emotional journey, but certainly one worth taking. I intend to see it again soon. Very soon.

Every movie must have a story that either invokes some sort of inspiration or realization for its viewers otherwise it is equal to reel of toilet paper. Well I wouldn't compare this to toilet paper, but it has everything except story. I don't know how related it is to the true story it is based on but I can say it feels as if something is happening in the background and the viewers are kept away. The characters are so indifferent to each other that at some point I felt like I will break the screen but then the beauty of the scenes stopped me. The actors/actresses are struggling to make sense of the dialogues and expression not knowing why they are doing so. If this movie is based on a book and as I read from other reviews that it is really beautiful then the director and the screenplay writer has to find another job. No wonder it is rated so low.

I find it strange, that Cambridge educated Stevens chose to leave probably the most successful period TV drama of the last 20 years to star in exactly the same role in a period movie! He was very good, understated, doesn't overact - leaves that to Dominic Cooper to ham things up. But what was Matthew doing in Cornwall, and why did he feel the need to go to Nigeria? I didn't really care for the love interest either, and for a woman who was supposed to be educated and liberated a la Austen, why does she marry the most inappropriate ego-centric genius who happens to ask her.

There was a scene as she walks along the cliff where I was literally willing her to throw herself over -might have spiced things up a bit.

Having said that, I did enjoy the film, mostly for the scenery and the accuracy of the manners and costume. The story line was weak and the heroine unattractive and ineffective. The two male leads were overcast but made the whole thing work.

By the way, a shout out to Cornwall, the most beautiful coastline of anywhere in the world.

I knew nothing of this artistic group and was keen on discovering their story. But everything is so dull! You do not feel the passion and turmoil in the characters (Dan Stevens has one and a half expression throughout the film) or it takes the form of violent outbursts that seem unexplainable or just the result of neurotic impulses. You do not feel the connection of the painters with nature, apart for the omnipresence of horses (unescapable considering the type of paintings AJ became famous for). The scenes are overly repetitive (Dan Stevens fishing, filmed in the same way) and Florence taking poison twice with the same type of shots. Besides, everything is too heavily predictable. The beautiful scenery of Cornwall cannot make up for an utter lack of substance and conviction. Very boring, eventually.

I went to this blind, as it were, not having read any reviews on here - I think this is probably the first - nor any of the critic reviews in the papers. I am a little surprised that it is showing so low on the star rating as, for myself and my wife, it was a throughly entertaining evening at the cinema. I knew very little about the Newlyn artistic set before but it would appear to have been as incestuous and fraught with failed and doomed relationships as the Bloomsbury literary group of a couple of decades later. Enter Florence, fresh from an overbearing father in London, to visit her brother who was already part of the set. Her beauty turns more than a few heads and A.J.Munnings, a wild and poetry-spouting bohemian, persuades her to sit as a model - and attempts to teach her the rudiments of drawing. Gilbert, in some ways the major-domo of the group but not an artist himself, also falls for Florence but she sees in him many of the traits of her strait-laced father and when Munnings proposes to her she accepts. Tragedy, as we will have garnered from what has gone before, will inevitably follow. The photography and cinematography is a pleasure to the eye and the producer has taken pains to get the period correct. Where it slightly falls down is in the character of Florence who, I have since learnt, was already unsettled and a depressive before she arrived at Lamorna. This would account for her later actions but we get no sense of her instability in the first half of the film. There may be an over-emphasis on "all down the pub for a jolly good drink and a sing-along and pay the landlord with a quick 10 second sketch for the bill" but overall we felt sufficiently interested in the history portrayed by the movie to do some subsequent research on the real characters portrayed.