MOVIE REVIEWS
After the breezy successes of Grease and The Blue Lagoon, director Randal Kleiser made what can only be described as one of the greatest guilty-pleasure movies of all time. Summer Lovers is a bubble-brained movie if ever there was one, involving a love triangle between characters who have all the depth of a Calvin Klein commercial; but you don't care because the movie's so irresistibly alluring.
Daryl Hannah and Peter Gallagher play a young couple vacationing in Greece when they meet one of the island locals, a gorgeous paleontologist (French actress Valérie Quennessen) who quickly proves that when it comes to love on a Greek island, three is better than two. This innocent flirtation endures a bit of ego-bruising animosity, but suspicion eventually subsides and blossoms into a sensuously delightful ménage à trois, accompanied by a soundtrack full of early-'80s pop by Chicago, Elton John, Blondie, the Pointer Sisters, and others.
In addition to suggesting an interesting use of candle wax during foreplay and treating viewers to the vision of Ms. Quennessen cavorting topless whenever the impulse strikes her (and it strikes her frequently), Summer Lovers is like a time capsule from the earliest years of MTV. It's mindless entertainment, but on vacations like this, who wants to be an intellectual?
- JEFF SHANNON
RANDAL KLEISER'S ''Summer Lovers,'' which opens today at Loews State and other theaters, is, among other things, one of the best arguments against tourism ever committed to the screen. It takes place on the Greek island of Santorini, and as the film begins, hundreds of tanned, well-heeled young visitors descend on the place. Shoving aside peasants and donkeys, they rent most of the island's cottages, take countless snapshots and bop to the disco music they so dearly love. You couldn't run a windmill with the collective brainpower of everyone involved.
''Oh, wow!'' says Cathy (Daryl Hannah) as she gets off the plane. ''All right!'' exclaims Michael (Peter Gallagher), her boyfriend. ''I can't tell you how much this place turns me on,'' Michael says later, and he is not just talking about the sunset. The island, which by now looks like an ant colony, is loaded with great-looking swingers who sunbathe in the nude. When he and Cathy first visit the beach, Michael brings his binoculars. Supposedly eyeing the nearby rock formations, Michael declares, ''I think I'll go exploring.''
Now, Michael and Cathy have not been getting along too well - we know that from the copies of ''Imaginative Sex'' and ''Nice Girls Do'' that Cathy keeps by the bedside. So it is not altogether surprising that Michael begins stalking Lina (Valerie Quennessen), a cute Frenchwoman well versed in the things Cathy has been reading up on. After eyeing Lina for a couple of days, Michael strikes up a conversation with her on a bus and follows her to the beach. She is being quite haughty and indifferent, even when - voila! - she matterof-factly removes all her clothing. Michael looks a little flustered by this. You cannot exactly blame him.
But it isn't long before Michael has gotten over his shyness and won Lina over by dropping pebbles all over her. This is the start of an excessively beautiful friendship. When the not-sufficientlycarefree Cathy finds out what Michael has been up to, she makes some trouble. ''You stink, you know that?'' Cathy shouts. ''Yeah, I know that,'' Michael replies. Mr. Kleiser's screenplay is tongue-tied, but it is no worse than his slow, dopey, thoroughly disingenuous direction.
Mr. Kleiser, it should be remembered, is the man behind ''The Blue Lagoon,'' a film that presented the spectacle of two gorgeous, barely dressed young innocents to an audience of ticket-buying teen-agers. How better to improve on this, Mr. Kleiser appears to have asked himself, than to provide three such characters, change the island and cut back even further on the clothing allowance? That is what he has done in ''Summer Lovers,'' and that is all he has done. The characters are so idiotically wholesome that their menage a trois is never convincing, and their travails seem laughably unimportant.
Michael's big complaint, for instance, after both Cathy and Lina have apparently bedded down with him but not with each other - this is a movie that is exploitative enough to contain lots of nudity, but hypocritical enough to keep the sex off-camera -is that the women are not doing the housework. ''I can't live like this!'' he cries, staring angrily at a pile of laundry. Boo-hoo.
It does not appear likely that teen-age audiences will find crowded, disco-ridden Santorini (with some additional footage on Mykonos, Crete and Delos) as glamorous as the tropical paradise of Mr. Kleiser's last film, or that they will be as interested in softcore hokum when it is minus Brooke Shields. Mr. Gallagher has eyebrows rather like Miss Shields's, but the resemblance ends there, and the rest of him is disturbingly doltish. Miss Hannah, who cut a striking figure as the acrobatic, punk-looking android in ''Blade Runner,'' does a complete turnaround here; as the straight-arrow, surfer-girl Cathy, she could not be more bland. Miss Quennessen, looking pert and clever, is a lot more intriguing than her co-stars, but the script does not show her off to any advantage. When Cathy comes to visit and remarks, ''You have a lot of books on archeology,'' poor Lina must snap back, ''I'm an archaelogist.'' It is never explained why, even though absolutely everybody in the movie is on the prowl, the very pretty Lina can have a see-through wardrobe, an anything-goes attitude, a nice villa all her own - and nobody but Cathy or Michael to talk to.
Three's Company.
- JANET MASLIN (Published: August 20, 1982)
Improbably bland sweethearts Michael and Cathy (Gallagher, Hannah) rent a holiday villa on a Greek island teeming with wanton youths sporting colourful nylon rucksacks and all-over tans. The couple's fragile happiness is shattered when Michael has an affair with another woman (Quennessen), then restored when she moves into their villa and bed.
For us to believe in these liberated living arrangements, Kleiser brings the women into unusually sharp relief (for this type of film), knocking Michael from the film's and ménage's centre. However, by so revealing the two women, Kleiser makes us wonder why they would turn to the resoundingly dull Michael for anything.
But the film plays safe, presumably a concession (like the pounding disco soundtrack) to the conservative taste of the American public, which was polled throughout the making of the film. But all this cannot entirely remove the piquant sensuality that will titillate more subtle palates.
- F.D.
"Summer Lovers" is a beach party movie for the 1980s. It begins with the genre's basic ingredients: sun, sand, surf, bikinis and a nearby disco. But we no longer live in quite such an innocent world as the one inhabited by the beach party gang, so in addition to the sun, sand, etc., this movie also contains graduate students, Greek wine, ennui, troubled relationships, problems with self-image, visits to an archeological dig and the current war-cry of love affairs, "Trust me."
Basically, though, what we're talking about here is sun sand, surf and bikinis. The movie takes place on a Greek island, circa right now. A young American couple has come spend the summer. They've been living together for about five years and have a good relationship based on mutual understanding and intellectual respect and other concepts that would come as news to Frankie and Annette.
Anyway, they rent a beautiful snow-white villa up on a hill overlooking the sparkling waters and terraced village. Things go well for a while; she works on her art studies, he scoots around the island on his motorcycle, and then, one day, everything changes when he notices the deep, dark eyes of a young French woman regarding him with tantalizing frankness.
What develops next will not come as news to devoted readers of the movie's ads. The summer grows hot and slow and boring, and the couple begin to get on each other's nerves, and the guy happens to run into the French woman, who is an archeologist, and they find themselves powerfully attracted to each other physically and spend the night together, and the next day he gets tears and accusations from his American girlfriend and there goes their "open relationship," failing its first acid test.
But then the young American woman boldly goes to visit the French woman. They sort of like one another. They become friends. Now it's the guy's turn to be threatened. But gradually, through lots of bonfires and dinners and visits to archeological digs, a sort of menage a trois develops. I say menage a trois cautiously, since this one doesn't fit the textbook definition: Both of the women become the man's lovers, but they do not have a relationship with one another. There are a few things that the beach party genre is not yet quite ready for.
All of this is sort of fun, in a silly way. A lot of the credit for that has to go to the three actors, who are attractive and engaging enough to sell this very slight material through the warmth of their own personalities. The American students are played by Peter Gallagher, looking curly-headed and Greek-American, and Daryl Hannah, blond and with a lovely smile. The French women is Valerie Quennessen, dark-haired and a little offbeat, as all archeologists are, of course.
The movie's a little confusing, though, perhaps because the director, Randal Kleiser, could never quite make up his mind about his story. Kleiser is best-known for "Grease" and for the Brooke Shields deserted island romance, "The Blue Lagoon."
This time, he seems to be going for something more than soft porn in the lagoon. He wants to tell us something about these characters. He wants (gasp!) to have insights about them. But only up to a point.
His problem, then, is that his insights keep interrupting the sex, and the sex keeps undermining the insights. The result is a movie that doesn't really work as semi-erotic romance, and never quite gets itself together as a character study. It's as if Frankie and Annette were in therapy.
- ROGER EBERT (August 4, 1982)
Randal Kleiser’s “Summer Lovers” is a breezy film, like an easy-read when describing books. On the surface, it’s a simple movie that explores the sexual nature of human beings. While some may argue films are getting more explicit as the years pass, I guarantee you that you won’t find a plot anything like this 1982 flick of passion and exploitation.
The movie stars Peter Gallagher and Daryl Hannah as Michael and Cathy, a young couple vacationing in Greece for the entire duration of the summer. They aren’t married, so you can imagine how their vacation will be a test of their relationship.
Writer/director Randal Kleiser isn’t afraid of censorship. He entertained numerous adolescent males with his scandalous “The Blue Lagoon” two years earlier, a film starring Brooke Shields and Christopher Atkins. Shields and Atkins star as two young kids who find themselves stranded and alone on a deserted island after a nasty storm separates the two from their company. They learn to survive on the island, and eventually grow into young and ripe adults. The movie is probably most famous for showcasing Shields and Atkins completely naked through most of it.
“In Summer Lovers,” there is almost just as much nudity, but only because the backdrop is Greece, which is known for its many nude beaches. While both Hannah and Gallagher show a lot of skin, much of nudity is handled by the sun-bathing extras, easily found by the camera.
What makes this film an exploitation piece is how the nudity is structured in the film, much of it coming at unfitting and unnecessary times. I believe Hannah was restricted by a clause that limited the amount of skin she showed, because her most revealing scenes happen very early on, and her most concealing ones (though only partialy) take place later.
The actual test of the relationship in “Summer Lovers” doesn’t happen until Lina (Valérie Quennessen) enters the stage. She is seen sun-bathing on a cliff by Michael who immediately becomes attracted to her in a mysterious way. He eventually encounters her and joins her on the beach where the two have their first discussion while they happen to be naked. One thing leads to another, and soon Michael and Lina have sex off in a cave somewhere.
But Michael is a good person. He is bothered by the fact that he has been unfaithful, and soon confesses to Cathy. She naturally doesn’t take it well, but instead of cutting their vacation short, Cathy wants to learn more, and eventually approaches Lina to learn why Michael has been seeing her.
This love triangle becomes a learning experience for Cathy, Michael and Lina. Surviving the summer means growing and coming to an understanding about passion and the fantasies of individuals. The movie turns when the three try spending the summer together, as lovers in a three-way relationship.
As I’ve mentioned earlier, you don’t see this plot written in movies today, probably because something like this is considered borderline soft core porn. And it is exploitation, but it doesn’t go past the R-rated realm. There is a purpose to the film; an enjoyable one about characters coming to terms with their sexuality.
Conflicts occur when: parents decide to show up, the fact that summer’s end will be the end of trio, jealous characters come into play, and attitudes change that once kept Michael and Cathy close. An attempt will be made to solve each conflict; some will be more successful than others.
The acting is pretty bad and the dialogue is cheesy, but it wasn’t considered so in the early eighties, at a time when is was normal for movies to have bad acting and cheesy dialogue. But even if that was an issue back then, or if the movie was made this year, the subject matter alone is what makes “Summer Lovers” worth watching.
Will you learn anything from this movie? It doesn’t teach anything, but it will make you reflect upon your views of what is and isn’t appropriate in modern day relationships. Would you ever have a three-way with your partner and someone else? How about with a complete stranger? Does such a concept even happen in real life between two devoted parters? Either way, the film’s portrayal of this taboo concept is worth a look.
- Scott Spicciati
I don't even know how many times I've seen this movie but it's a lot. It's kinda like a legend around here. It's not particularly good and the acting is only slightly better than mediocre but everything and everyone looks really great and it requires no thought whatsoever. I think that's where the appeal lies. Well, either that or it's the threesomes.
(February 8, 2004)
Life, love, and sex. It’s as if they asked me to OK every part of this production (well, except for a few ‘80s pop songs—those need help). The tone is light and the atmosphere is sensual, but there’s a message with the sun, sand, and skin, and it’s a simple one: This is your life; live it!
Michael and Cathy are naïve Americans who decide to cut loose for a summer on the Greek isles. Being conventional sorts, their wild plans are rather tame, at least for Peoria. They’ve been together for five years and love each other, but love doesn’t mean happiness, and both are mildly discontented. Then Michael spots Lina, a mysterious
French beauty, and being male, he wants her. That he catches her is more due to her interest in no-strings island-sex than in his charms. Since he is foolish, not an ass, he tells all to Cathy, who decides to visit Lina and discover what makes her so alluring. To her surprise, they get along well, and soon, all three are trying to work out the complexities of a three-way (though only heterosexual) relationship.
This is the story of three very pretty people (Peter Gallagher, Daryl Hannah, and Valerie Quennessen), surrounded by many nude and semi-nude pretty beach-goers, all on an extremely pretty island. Yes, the word for the day is pretty. The camera work may not be stunning, but what the camera is pointed at is. Primarily it is the naked young bodies, but the Greek islands, the sea, the architecture, and the ruins are close behind. These aren’t locations you can fake, and for reasons known only to the Government of Greece, the filmmakers were given permission to shoot on ancient sites and even in an active dig. (Quennessen, portraying an archeologist, discovered actual 3500 year old pottery while in front of the camera.)
The acting is more than a bit stilted, and the dialog is unremarkable, though the second isn’t a detriment. The lines sound like I’d expect to hear from inexperienced youths, which is the definition of Michael and Cathy. Besides the beauty onscreen, it is plot and message which makes this an intoxicating film. The pair stumbles along the way, but learns that there’s more to life than a house in the suburbs, two kids, and a dog. Lina manages to pick up a bit too, but she was well advanced of the others to begin with. Lina quotes Margaret Mead: “Jealousy doesn’t show how much you love someone; it shows how insecure you are.” That’s only a small part of the theme, and not the most important part. It isn’t even completely true, in the world or for the characters. But it shows where Lina starts from, and where they are all going.
SUMMER LOVERS is an artifact of an earlier time, when there was hope for a better future. When it looked like maybe, just maybe, love and Lust and freedom could mix, You don’t see movies like this any more. There is no fear in it (although occasionally the characters are scared). Sex is fun and a ménage à trios is both acceptable and desirable (Hell, 90% of the male population of the planet can tell you it’s desirable—as long as they think no one can hear them say it—but somehow, pop culture doesn’t understand that). How have things fared since1982. Less insightful teen sex comedies (AMERICAN PIE 5) now announce that a ménage à trios isn’t worth having because it isn’t romantic. Yeah. Right. In the 1990s, SUMMER LOVERS was shown on TV in edited form. Not only with the nudity cut, but the ending was removed, leaving Michael and Cathy depressed and Lina alone and broken. The edited pic preached that anything but a conventional, passion-low relationship would only lead to unhappiness. It's time for a trip back to 1982.
If Brooke Shields had been of legal age during the filming of Randall Kleiser's "The Blue Lagoon," then that movie probably would have looked more like his follow-up feature, "Summer Lovers." Apparently unable to shake the erotic nature of that 1980 fiasco, Kleiser went on to craft yet another self-indulgent examination of naked bronzed bodies and lifeless characters who begin to experience the pleasures of the flesh in new and unexciting ways. It's not that the premise itself doesn't have some intrigue about it: it's just that the way in which the film carries it out is less affecting than it should be.
Set in the lush and beautiful Greek islands, we meet Michael and Cathy (Peter Gallagher, Daryl Hannah), a young couple who have come to spend their summer basking in the sun and swimming in the crystal clear waters surrounding the white sands of the beach. No sooner have they arrived than they are surprised by the cultural differences all around them, most notably the fact that no one seems to wear clothes for very long in Greece. Once they hit the beach, it's a free-for-all of bared genitalia; at first hesitant, they soon adjust to their new surroundings.
Of course, wall-to-wall nude bodies starts to get under Michael's skin, especially when he lays eyes on Lina (Val?rie Quennessen), a French archaeologist also on holiday; after various sessions of making cat eyes at one another, the two end up sleeping with one another. Michael, still in a daze over his emotions, asks Cathy if she's ever considered opening their relationship up to new venues. While she initially isn't so accepting of the idea, she eventually warms to the prospect of a third party, and soon the three of them are living together, frolicking on the beaches, making new friends, dancing the nights away, and living in unwedded bliss. But once the emotionally-distant Lina begins going out on her own, things becoming confusing for the threesome.
As a movie, "Summer Lovers" is an 80's time capsule that may or may not have aged well, depending on the audience. The big hair, the clothes, the accessories, and the music of The Pointer Sisters and Blondie, all contribute to the kitschy feel of the piece that purists will love and modernists will abhor.
I didn't so much mind all of this as much as I did the lackluster story: what could have been a well-intentioned exploration of the ups and downs of a three-way relationship turns out to be nothing more than softcore porn for horny teenage boys. In his struggle to capture on film as many chiseled physiques as he possibly can, Kleiser, who also wrote the script, fails to muster any involvement with the characters. Instead of peering into their emotions as they discover that their type of newfound love isn't always easy, he takes the easy way out by capping the movie off with a happy ending that leaves us nothing. Gallagher, Hannah, and Quennessen, all in their early days, deliver serviceable performances that are at least watchable, but again there's something lacking here. There's a good movie to be made about the consequences of free love, but "Summer Lovers" lacks the courage to accomplish this.
- David Litton
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