“My Late Summer” – or how to refuse a fling, save an island, and roast fascism, all before dinner

 “My Late Summer” – or how to refuse a fling, save an island, and roast fascism, all before dinner

Original title: Nakon ljeta (which sounds like a spell to banish tourists – and honestly, it might be).

Danis Tanović, master of Balkan bittersweetness, has returned – and this time, he’s armed with an island, a conscience, and a heroine who could teach Odysseus a thing or two about resistance. 

My Late Summer is less of a “summer movie” and more of a what-if Chekhov wrote Mamma Mia! on a hangover but with political clarity and better female characters.

Let’s start with the island. 

The island deserves its own Oscar. It broods, it whispers, it seduces, it sulks. 

It’s not just a backdrop. 

It’s a moody ex-lover, a faded utopia, a crumbling paradise lost somewhere between Tito’s ghost and Airbnb hell. 

You can almost hear it sigh every time a drone shot pans over its cliffs. If this island had a Tinder profile, it would just say “leftist, tired, no fascists, must like cows.”

Now, enter our protagonist: a woman so richly drawn, so gloriously complex, she makes most Hollywood “strong female leads” look like damp toast. 

She’s returned to the island of her childhood, but she’s not here for a sentimental rekindling of her mother’s sun-drenched affair with some guitar-strumming revolutionary. 

No. Our heroine isn’t here to repeat the past; she’s here to interrogate it, interrogate herself, and if necessary, interrogate the guy trying to flirt with her by quoting Gramsci.

And speaking of flirtation: the anti-fling. 

This is the summer of “thanks, but I’m dismantling generational trauma instead.” 

The refusal is delicious – not cold, but principled. 

Like turning down a cocktail because you’re busy organizing the bar staff. 

The film could have easily slipped into romantic cliché, but Tanović swerves hard left – literally. 

There’s more passion in a whispered conversation about land rights than in most big-screen kisses. And frankly, it’s hotter.

The acting? Sublime. 

Everyone on screen looks like they actually belong there – sunburnt, complex, haunted by politics and family feuds. 

Every character feels like someone you met once at a weird beach bonfire and never forgot.

The characters in My Late Summer are so delightfully eccentric, I’m convinced Tanovic just threw a dinner party, transcribed the chaos, and called it a novel. I half expected one of them to start a jazz band with a stray cat and a ghost named Gerald.

Ico is the kind of guy who thinks deep thoughts while herding cows high on island weed — literally and figuratively. 

The cows, by the way, seem more grounded than most of the people around him.

 The police officers act like they’re solving international espionage.

But they’re really just chasing down bootleg rakija and whoever dared play Ramstein within earshot of the old lady who believes Tito died so she wouldn’t have to hear synths.

The girl? Mysterious, enchanting, and probably allergic to making normal life decisions. 

The experiment drink tastes like someone mixed jet fuel with regret, yet it's somehow the highlight of local science.

Meanwhile, the islanders pray to saints with one hand and wave at cruise ships with the other, chanting socialist slogans while pricing out Airbnb listings. 

It’s like Marx meets TripAdvisor.

And the writer—ah yes, the writer—he came for inspiration, found a summer fling, and remained with heatstroke, 47 unfinished chapters, and a slight addiction to grilled sardines.

And through it all, Tanović keeps the anti-fascist, leftist flame burning – not as a slogan, but as a lived-in atmosphere.

 It’s not preachy. It’s poignant.

 The island resists gentrification.

 The characters resist nostalgia.

 And the heroine resists, well, pretty much everything except personal growth and olives.

My Late Summer is the kind of film that lulls you with cicadas and then smacks you with dialectical materialism. 

It’s funny, it’s sharp, it’s sun-dappled socialism with a side of existential dread. 

And in a world full of empty summer love stories, it’s a glorious, defiant no-thank-you.

Do yourself a favour. Watch it. And maybe skip that summer fling.Giulia Dobre