After a decade-long absence, Catherine Breillat triumphantly returns with an exploration of the themes that have made her one of cinema’s most rousing and controversial directors: the ecstasies and wounds of sexuality, and its power to unsettle. A remarkably inscrutable Léa Drucker plays Anne—an attorney advocating for abused minors—who enjoys an enviable lifestyle with her husband, Pierre (Olivier Rabourdin), a milquetoast businessman and ineffectual father to Théo (newcomer Samuel Kircher), his troubled teenage son from a previous marriage. Compelled by her stepson’s Apollonian beauty, Anne embarks on an affair that threatens the stability of her household, along with her professional integrity, as she faces a choice between accountability and deception. Original music by Kim Gordon and radiantly expressionist cinematography by Jeanne Lapoirie heighten the erotic and ethical tensions of Last Summer, Breillat’s latest foray into the outer limits of desire.
