Every year there seems to be a new book or movie on the subject of incest in France — most recently Catherine Breillat’s “Last Summer.” Extending from this tradition, in which a sunny French bourgeois family is secretly rotting from the inside, is “Endless Summer Syndrome,” a promising debut feature by the Iranian director Kaveh Daneshmand that frames the crime as a twisty detective story.
As Delphine (Sophie Colon), a lawyer, enjoys her final days of vacation in her family’s country villa, she receives an anonymous call from one of her husband’s co-workers telling her that Antoine (Matheo Capelli), a novelist, drunkenly confessed to having an affair with one of his children.
Suddenly, Delphine’s blissful vacation turns into a paranoid inferno as she obsesses over her family’s dynamic and each member’s behaviors. Could the child in question be their coquettish 17-year-old daughter, Adia (Frédérika Milano)? Or Aslan (Gem Deger), their brooding college-bound eldest? Both Adia and Aslan were adopted, and Delphine and her husband’s bohemian parenting style (a topless Adia sunbathes in front of them, and Aslan at one point shares a joint with mom) now adds to Delphine’s suspicion that she’s surrounded by strangers.
The luxe pastoral setting and slow-burning suspense recall the psychological thrillers of Patricia Highsmith and Claude Chabrol, while the magnetic Colon anchors the plot’s more sensational turns. The focus on Delphine’s mental state is a reminder that this is a story about betrayal, and the human cost of abandoning reason in the name of desire.
The script falters when it attempts to pinpoint the dysfunctions of a modern family in the age of fluid sexual identities and multiculturalism. But none of these potentially intriguing avenues play out with much thought, diminishing the emotional effect of a tragedy that winds up seeming like an exercise in style.
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