The film tells the story of two friends (Dominic Cooper, Dan Stevens) at a British artist colony in 1913. They are having a special phase of their lives together while they are on the beginner's feelings, but the goal of chasing them soon turns upside down.
Cooper stomps around ineffectually, Stevens makes for a blandly tame suitor, and Browning is unable to ignite any chemistry with either. The scenery is stunning. But the swooning has all the heat of a midwinter's swim.
...Summer In February eventually settles into a dull routine much like the dissatisfied characters of the film, which will make for an easily dissatisfied audience.
Gorgeous scenes along the Cornish coast are impressive, but the film lacks the dynamic chemistry between lovers that's so important in a romance-themed movie.
Regardless of its true-story credentials, Summer In February seems to have been cobbled together from the moldy spare parts of countless Masterpiece Theater PBS movies.
In the end, it's a miserable movie about miserable people, and we're left to wonder why. But any further time spent considering this forgettable romance feels wasted.
Real-life historical drama about a Bohemian artists' colony in Cornwall just before World War I ignores their work... to focus on a tediously tragic romantic triangle.
It's sad when a movie that aspires to tell a sad, even tragic, story can't quite connect, and lies there inert on the screen instead of galvanizing or even stirring emotions the way it means to.
