Summer '04 (2006)

More in the nature of audience eavesdropping on some scandalous neighbors than gripping or meaningful storytelling, the film is wracked with superficial, amoral characters and petty, hand wringing sordid emotional preoccupations and obsessions.

If Krohmer and Knocke meticulously crafted the world Miriam inhabits, it is Gedeck's presence that makes it such a tangible mess -- which is meant as high praise indeed.

Alternating between polite probing and adolescent fidgeting once lust takes over, [actor Gedeck's] turn props up this intellectual potboiler even when it stumbles and falls.

The film unfolds with cold, Chabrolian detachment and quietly builds to a coolly satisfying denouement that leaves everyone involved -- including the audience -- second-guessing everything that's come before.