If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

How sad is this?

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

I don't know how I've managed to not see this film till now, except I guess, for some reason it was only available for a short time. But it is a stunner, all bright, golden and light, at first, but rapidly the evidence of some dark undertow becomes evident. Alain Souchon seems a barely adequate pairing for Isabelle Adjani but it all gradually comes together. Adjani is skimpily dressed, partly undressed or completely nude for the entire picture and so hypnotises that we are distracted and unable to foresee what will be the doom laden, final denouement. I cannot think of another film where the leading lady looks so sensational from every angle and throughout an entire movie as Adjani does in this. Never a dull moment, as they say, and more than that, little is what it seems at first and those we think have a handle on things maybe don't. There is an intimate moment between Adjani's character and her mother that astonished and baffled me that does resonate as the film builds to its explosive ending.

There are some elements of this movie that are extremely interesting. The problem is, the plot is quite muddled and it looks as if two different movies had been spliced together. One movie was about a nymph who loved sex and got raunchy with EVERYONE (including Mom) and the other is a Hitchcock-like suspense movie about revenge. Combined, they just don't work. As a sex film, it doesn't quite work and as a suspense it has problems as well because of the inexplicable story elements. I have absolutely no idea why, out of the blue, this 20 year-old opens her mother's blouse and begins sucking her Mom's breast or renews a sexual affair with an older female teacher or walks around naked in front of her mother in law, smacks her father over the head repeatedly with a shovel after he fondles her butt or sleeps with LOTS of different men. All these sexcapades distract from the main story line. In addition, at times her character just seems rather dumb and if she's just "winging it" when it comes to her convoluted plot for revenge.The first half of the movie is the problem, as most of the 2nd half is excellent. If it were remade, it could be a fantastic film.

Thirty years later,this movie tries to capture the atmosphere of the great Clouzot,Duvivier and Decoin film noirs of the forties and fifties.But it's wishful thinking.Because no one is HG Clouzot except HG Clouzot and do not expect the return of "diabolique ".Besides,novelist Sebastien Japrisot is one of the worst suspense writer France has ever known,and he's no match for Boileau-Narcejac,Simenon or Frédéric Dard.Such horrors like Litvak's "la dame dans l'auto avec des lunettes et un fusil" and Clement's "la course du lièvre à travers les champs" (check the pretentious titles!)suffice to demonstrate this.With its "terrible past" flashbacks,its amateurish performances (Alain Souchon,a good singer but a poor actor),and Isabelle Adjani who tries to make up for the paucity of ideas by showing up completely naked(because of the heat of the Summer maybe),the movie can convince someone who has not seen a Hitchcock movie yet.But is there a thriller buff who hasn't? The story is inept,complicated instead of complex. "L'été meutrier" was one of the greatest hits of the eighties French box-office ,but the critics were tepid.Quite rightly so.Note:director Jean Becker is none other than Jacques Becker's ( casque d'or" "Goupi mains rouges" "le trou" and other great classics)son.Like father,like son,definitely not.

I have been searching to find the name of this film for nearly 3 years now because I am dying to see it again! I have to say IMDB's search capabilites ROCKS! I would never have found this if it weren't for the character search. I just didn't understand why Eliane moved right in with Pin-Pon and his family (I thought she was looking for the men who "hurt" her mother) and when she found the piano in the barn, she became even more suspicious of his family, but WHY did she continue to stay with him??? So, I will watch it again and come back after I figure out what in the world I missed the first time. Thanks IMDB!