During one brooding summer in the English countryside, two girls become best friends. My Summer of Love is a charmer that succeeds because of the charismatic performance of its two leads, Nathalie Press and Emily Blunt. They are so utterly convincing that even when the plotline takes some familar turns, we’ve been mesmerised beyond care. Working-class Mona (Press) meets rich Tasmin (Blunt) and is led, donkey-like, into her bourgeois home full of sordid secrets. Mona is happy to escape her born-again older brother (Paddy Considine) who is convinced Tasmin represents all that is evil in love. The girls, you see, have found more than one way to express their emotion. Things go haywire when Tasmin calls his bluff, he locks Mona in her bedroom and family scandals reveal themselves in unexpected ways. My Summer of Love is largely a character piece driven by the budding relationship of the girls, one that is tenderly and realistically conveyed. The chameleon-like ability of Press to channel a young Tilda Swinton and Vicki Pollard in equal measure is entrancing: her burning gaze leaves scorch marks on the screen. Blunt and Considine are a good match, particularly Blunt as the fickle princess who steels Mona’s heart. Director Pawel Pavlikovsky draws comparisons between spirituality and sexuality: a thin argument that undermines his film. Yet in suggesting that all which occurs is but a passing phase, is, in the context of a lazy-summer fling, not so unreasonable. My Summer of Love is, after all, a story that glides on the gossamer-like potential of romance. It doesn’t really need a point. // COLIN FRASER