Summer of 85

Here, the story and the characters' supposed naiveté and the almost-too-obvious stylistic flourishes aren't just nods to his younger, less-refined m.o. They are actually part of a master storyteller's tools to seduce a grown-up audience into considering how youngsters not only experience their own lives but also how they process and talk about them.

Summer of 85 delights in romantic excess, ending up as an almost literal evocation of one of the songs on its era-specific soundtrack.

Still, despite some distracting contrivances, Summer of 85 transports viewers to a place, time and feeling that feel altogether real, and not nearly as far away as they initially might seem.

The movie has dug a hole for itself with the disingenuous framing device, and the last act feels like a cheat, revealing Alex’s “crime” to be anything but. While the midsection of the film proves to be the most charming — a kind of extended montage in which the young men tentatively test the limits of their relationship — it’s the final stretch that situates Summer of 85 squarely within Ozon’s oeuvre.

Summer of 85 plays like a bad parody of movies like Love Story and Summer of ’42, stories where some undeserving male learns a valuable lesson from a love affair and death.