Summer Rain (2006)

A coming-of-age tale charting the first loves, lusts and obsessions of friends on vacation at the end of the 1970s.

Director:

Antonio Banderas

Writers:

Antonio Soler (adaptation), Antonio Soler (novel)

Stars:

Alberto Amarilla, María Ruiz, Félix Gómez

1 win & 4 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Alberto Amarilla	...	Miguelito
María Ruiz	...	Luli
Félix Gómez	...	Paco Frontón
Raúl Arévalo	...	Babirusa
Fran Perea	...	El Garganta
Marta Nieto	...	La Cuerpo
Mario Casas	...	Moratalla
Antonio Garrido	...	Cardona
Antonio Zafra	...	Enano Martínez
Berta de la Dehesa	...	La Gorda de la Cala
Victor Perez	...	González Cortés
Cuca Escribano	...	Fina
Lucio Romero	...	Abuelo
Romay Rodríguez	...	Rafi (as Ronky Rodríguez)
Pepa Aniorte	...	Fonseca

Storyline

The film takes place in 1978 in Málaga (Spain), and depicts the life of teenager Miguelito Dávila (Alberto Amarilla), who, after suffering from kidney disease and spending some time at the hospital, has learned such classic poetry as Dante's Divine Comedy and dreams of leaving his job at a hardware store and pursuing his dream of becoming a poet. One summer, he hangs out with his childhood friends Babirusa (Raúl Arévalo), Paco Frontón (Félix Gómez) and Moratalla (Mario Casas), until he meets a girl called Luli (María Ruiz) at the swimming pool, and the two start dating. Luli would love to become a professional dancer, and is best friends with "La cuerpo" (Marta Nieto), who fancies Miguelito's posh friend Paco. The two couples spend time together swimming, and gradually they experiment with other distractions. Miguelito meets later an older teacher (Victoria Abril), who is interested in his talent, and begins an affair with her around the same time that Cardona (Antonio Garrido), an ...

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Plot Keywords:

bare breasts | large breasts | seductive woman | older woman teenage boy sex | woman fingering her vagina | 

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Genres:

Drama | Romance

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

Spain UK

Language:

Spanish

Release Date:

1 December 2006 (Spain)

Also Known As:

Summer Rain

Filming Locations:

Ciudad de la Luz, Alicante, Comunidad Valenciana, Spain

Box Office

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$2,411,526

Company Credits

Production Co:

Green Moon Productions, Sogecine, Future Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

118 min

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Óscar Faura, the second unit director of photography, had the main mission of shooting with freedom whatever he thought it was visually interesting, and not to worry about coverage, because the cinematographer Xavi Giménez was doing that. Faura carried an ear piece through which Banderas would told him to catch this and that.

User Reviews

Back to the drawing board, Antonio

I am an avid film fan and when I saw this DVD I thought "Great. Banderas, director, loved Crazy in Alabama, should be good." Wrong.

I did stick it out to the end in some sort of masochistic exercise. The film rambles endlessly. And that combined with the almost unintelligible "acento Malagueño" plus all the gratuitous adolescent sex made it difficult for me for me to like.

I didn't get any kind of message and neither did the other three people watching it with me.

I then watched the interview with Banderas and my take is that he read the novel, loved it and decided to make a movie. He has the international clout to get incredible financial backing (the backing credits at the start read like a phone book) and made the huge mistake, in my opinion, of having the author do the screenplay. I think a third person could have stood back and taken a better, or at least cohesive, view of the content.

On the positive side, I thought the photography was sensational and the ambiance of Spain under Franco was pretty good. I am not too sure those kids could have gotten away with all the free-wheeling sex during that period of Spain's history but I have never lived in Malaga.

My end comment would be "don't bother".