‘My Late Summer’ Review: A Woman Resists Repeating Her Mother’s Romantic Mistakes in Poignant Dramedy

“My Late Summer” is an enjoyable, Croatia-set dramedy helmed by Bosnia’s Oscar-winning director Danis Tanović (“No Man’s Land”) and produced by Zagreb’s Propeler Film. Both entertaining and laced with a poignant wistfulness, the regional co-production features some of the director’s longtime collaborators in the cast and crew. It centers on feisty 30-something Maja (Anja Matković), who journeys to a remote island, determined to get answers to questions about her past — and collect part of an inheritance that she feels is rightfully hers. As her personal mission takes longer than expected, the charming island locale, quirky locals and an unexpected romance help to focus her feelings about her identity and ambitions. 

Operating in a lighter mode than the fiercely astringent works of his early career, “My Late Summer” benefits from Tanović sharing screenwriting duties with lead Matković, as well as his “Not So Friendly Neighborhood Affair” co-writer Nikola Kuprešanin, resulting in a more nuanced and well-rounded female character than typical of his films. Indeed, Maja is reminiscent of a strong Howard Hawks heroine, giving as good as she gets physically and verbally.

Maja’s reasons for coming to the picturesque isle of Prvić in the off-season are not fully revealed at first, although the unreturned phone messages from her increasingly upset mother eventually fill in the gaps. After a local lawyer (Marija Škaričić) reveals that her case will require some time, Maja takes on a barmaid job offered by the island’s left-leaning mayor Icho (the sympathetic Goran Navojec), which conveniently comes with a place to stay. Although she has no waitressing experience, Maja is more than capable of handling the late summer locals and foreign tourists at the mayor’s outdoor harbor pub.

Although Maja seems equipped to deal with anything that life could throw at her, she certainly doesn’t plan on falling for visiting novelist Saša (the appealing Uliks Fehmiu), whose under-construction home camouflages the baggage that he comes with. Meanwhile, as the islanders prepare for the Feast of Assumption holiday, Mayor Icho and his contractor buddy Nediljko (Mario Knezović) look to cash in on their illicit crop of marijuana plants. 

Surrounded by clear sparkling water, the gorgeous, car-free island, with its cobblestone streets, ancient stone buildings and green patches of garden, becomes as much a character in the film as the performers. It’s such an enchanting locale that viewers can understand why Icho declares that he is married to it, and his dearest wish is to add to its perfection by bringing the residents a better sewage system. The screenplay even pays tribute to the island’s anti-fascist heritage with an elderly, trigger-happy partisan shooting from her balcony and singing Communist songs with the Mayor.

After a small role in Tanović’s “Neighborhood Affair,” the graceful, athletic Matković (before taking up acting, she was a professional alpine skier) shows off her leading lady chops and evinces a tender, believable chemistry with Fehmiu. She makes us feel Maja’s bewilderment and pain as she realizes that she is making the same romantic missteps that her mother did — and in the very same place too.

The evocative tech credits are aces in every respect, with kudos due to the atmospheric lensing by Serbian DoP Miloš Jaćimović (whose feature career started with the 2010 Sarajevo fest winner “Tilva Rosh”) and composer Livina Tanović’s melancholy score.