Summertime is a sophisticated and respectful account of womanhood, middle age, romance, hope, cultural differences, and loneliness. Katherine Hepburn plays Jane, an American tourist in exquisite Venice, Italy who finds passion and freedom with a shop owner played by the dapper charmer Rossano Brazzi. This is a romance, though not a typical one.
Directed by David Lean (of Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago fame) this film is an adaptation of the play Time of the Cuckoo by Arthur Laurents, though it's hard to picture it on stage when so much of the film's brilliance is in the cinematography of the city; so many picturesque and heart wrenching images of beauty. If this film doesn't make you want to pack up everything and fly to Venice, you can't be human.
It is a satisfying and tranquil film even if the end is not the fairytale that we and Katherine Hepburn's character have grown to both desire and expect. Ultimately, it's less about living happily ever after than living fully and completely each day.
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