Directing: C+
Acting: B
Writing: C-
Cinematography: B
Editing: B-

I suppose it’s refreshing to see a movie about young gay men in the 1980s that doesn’t focus on AIDS, or even mention it. We’ve all had more than our fair share of that. Whether we need what Summer of 85 offers up instead is a different question.

This is a gay love story, and still a sad one, but also sweet, and then, just plain odd. Young Alexis and David (Félix Lefebvre and Benjamin Voisin) are teenagers falling in love as they contemplate whether to finish school or move into the work force. And, as the narrative cuts back and forth between the present-day legal trouble Alexis is in, and the back story of their affair, it becomes clear why Alexis is in trouble. It has to do with a promise David made him make.

This promise is the crux of the whole plot in Summer of 85, and it is also the film’s central problem, the reason it falls apart upon even the slightest inspection. Even though I would not recommend anyone watch this movie, I still won’t spoil it—maybe you still want to find out for yourself. Suffice it to say that the promise is utterly ridiculous. To be fair, that is clearly David’s intent: something he wants Alexis to do should he ever die. After tragedy strikes, Alexis takes the promise seriously, and director François Ozon, adapting from a novel by Aidan Chambers (you can look it up; the title of the novel is the spoiler) plays it for serious, dramatic effect. It doesn’t work, however: playing the scene as a moving fulfillment of a young lover’s promise doesn’t make it any less ridiculous.

Until that happens, the development of a romantic and physical relationship between these two young, cute gay men is genuinely sweet. But, then it takes some bizarre turns—even before the “promise” is carried out (which, by the way, gets Alexis arrested). Suddenly Alexis is visiting a morgue disguised as a young woman. Wait, what? This left-field bit of cross-dressing is something I would hesitate to judge as “insensitive,” but it’s still a weird choice. When it comes to the writing and direction, it might still qualify as clueless.

There are other odd moments early on, which perhaps should serve as warning signs of strange turns to come. When Alexis’s sailboat capsizes and David rescues him—this is how they meet—David takes him home. This is where Alexis meets David’s widowed mother, who not only insists Alexis take a hot bath, but even insists on undressing him herself. She pulls his pants down, the camera behind him so we see his bare ass, and she is knelt in front of him so that she is suddenly gawking at his penis. “Your mother can be proud,” she says. There is nothing sexual suggested beyond this, and it seems as though it’s just meant to be a throwaway gag. And I . . . just don’t get it. Granted, this is a French film and the French have a different and more open sensibility, but, I have to wonder if even the French would think this scene in any way moves the story forward. (It doesn’t.)

I was willing to overlook this scene in the first half of the film because, at first, it seemed to be an anomaly in an otherwise sweet movie. Then a mutual young lady friend of Alexis and David, who becomes in essence part of a love triangle between them, helps him dress up as a girl in disguise to visit David’s body in a morgue. Wait, what? Alexis’s grief causes him to behave in very strange ways, which is a normal part of grief to be sure, but Summer of 85 takes it to unusual extremes.

Then, he’s researching Jewish burial traditions—this is how we learn David’s family is Jewish—and things just get more uncomfortable from there. By the time Alexis is delivering on David’s deliberately ridiculous promise, I found myself laughing out loud. Not because the scene is funny, as it is absolutely not intended to be, but because it is utterly preposterous. I have not read the novel on which this is based, but it’s easy to imagine this playing out in a more successfully moving way in written prose. Actually watching it, there’s just no way to avoid being taken right out of the movie. Like: why the hell am I watching this?

The two main actors are decent performers, doing what they can with this script that takes a while to reveal its own insanity. I suppose it might have been better if, for instance, Félix Lefebvre had some other talents. Summer of 85 might have been at least somewhat improved if he were—spoiler alert!—a better dancer.

*All of this could have been avoided if he had just worn a helmet!*

Overall: C+