Summer '04

What better way to spend 97 minutes in November than trying to sort out romantic complications in shorts and sailboats?

Straight ahead in form but unnerving and unexpected in content.

All I know is, I didn't buy it. It didn't scan. And I'm sorry it didn't, because Summer '04 offers much to admire and a few things to fear.

Although intelligent and insightful, Summer '04 is also more than just a little bit dull.

A well-crafted and deceptively leisurely film, with a heart of ice.

More in the nature of audience eavesdropping on some scandalous neighbors than gripping or meaningful storytelling, the film is wracked with superficial, amoral characters and petty, hand wringing sordid emotional preoccupations and obsessions.

If Krohmer and Knocke meticulously crafted the world Miriam inhabits, it is Gedeck's presence that makes it such a tangible mess -- which is meant as high praise indeed.

The film unfolds with cold, Chabrolian detachment and quietly builds to a coolly satisfying denouement that leaves everyone involved -- including the audience -- second-guessing everything that's come before.

The resulting cinematic chimera isn't remarkably pretty, but it's pretty remarkable.