Two portraits of transformative summers in Unrelated and Call Me by Your Name

by Fiona Underhill

The notion of wealthy Brits and Americans summering in Europe or ‘finding themselves’ in a summer abroad is by no means a new one. The Grand Tour and later the Cook’s Tour were established features of 17th to 19th century British life and were a rite-of-passage for those on the cusp of adulthood. Films based on the works of Henry James (Wings of the Dove, Portrait of a Lady) and EM Forster (A Room with a View) have captured this tradition and are usually ripe with scandalous affairs set amongst the jaw-dropping architecture and art-work of Florence and Venice. The 1950s had the summer romance films Roman Holiday (Wyler, 1953) and Summertime (Lean, 1955). The 90s were positively bursting with films depicting expats in Italy including Anthony Minghella’s period films The English Patient (1996) and The Talented Mr Ripley (1999), Branagh’s Much Ado About Nothing (1993), as well as Bertolucci’s Stealing Beauty (1996).