Summertime (15)
Directed by Catherine Corsini
4/5

SET against the political backdrop of the fight for women’s rights in 1970s France, this romantic drama shows how — nearly five decades on and despite a few advances — sadly not much has really changed.

Britain may now have its second-ever female Prime Minister, but women are still battling for equality and equal pay. In France, no woman has ever held the reins of power.

Catherine Corsini’s slow-burning but passionate love story, although a little predictable, is a reminder of the fervour and bravura of the feminist movement and the cost to its members.

Without ramming the politics home, she pays tribute to these intelligent and impassioned women who were vilified for fighting and standing up for their rights.

The film’s narrative centres on Delphine (Izia Higelin) who in 1971 moves to Paris to escape the restrictive life on her parents farm. There she meets and falls in love with charismatic feminist leader Carole (Cecile de France).

But when Delphine’s father (Jean-Henri Compere) suffers a stroke she is forced to return home and help her mother (Noemie Lvovsky) run the farm. Carole follows her and sets the cat among the pigeons and Corsini captures the bewilderment, anger and disbelief of a mother discovering her daughter is lesbian.

Delphine first encounters Carole when she and her activist sisters are harassing men on the street to make a point.

Turning the sexist tables, they pinch their bottoms and make lewd remarks.

Unsurprisingly, the men aren’t appreciative and when one turns violent on Carole, Delphine comes to her rescue.

Izia Higelin and Cecile de France are phenomenal as two women who are poles apart — one shy and retiring, the other a free spirit — but who lose their inhibitions with one another. When they are shown fully naked, it’s a reminder of a time when women had not yet embraced full body-waxing.

Corsini also explores the difficulty of young women coming out in male-dominated and small-minded rural communities and the prejudice they faced.

A sad and moving film, it’s punctuated by superb performances and the glorious depiction of the sun-drenched French countryside.