Summer Lovers

Improbably bland sweethearts Michael and Cathy (Gallagher, Hannah) rent a holiday villa on a Greek island teeming with wanton youths sporting colourful nylon rucksacks and all-over tans. The couple's fragile happiness is shattered when Michael has an affair with another woman (Quennessen), then restored when she moves into their villa and bed. For us to believe in these liberated living arrangements, Kleiser brings the women into unusually sharp relief (for this type of film), knocking Michael from the film's and ménage's centre. However, by so revealing the two women, Kleiser makes us wonder why they would turn to the resoundingly dull Michael for anything. But the film plays safe, presumably a concession (like the pounding disco soundtrack) to the conservative taste of the American public, which was polled throughout the making of the film. But all this cannot entirely remove the piquant sensuality that will titillate more subtle palates.