Somewhere in the world, there is always one film festival at which a complete clinker can score points, a contention borne out with the inexplicable news that this film beat the likes of Life And Nothing But and Parenthood to snap up the main prize at Tokyo last year.*It is Yugoslavia in the last summer of World War II. Tom Conti, attempting to reprise his slightly more convincing role as a Southern European in Shirley Valentine and playing it somewhere between John Noakes and Patrick Troughtons Dr Who is Andrija, a simple-minded lifeguard in a stripey shirt. All around him, old folks and children swim and sunbathe, and Andrija is a little disheartened that in all the years hes been doing the job, he has never actually saved anyones life.
This sorry state of affairs is about to change, however, with the arrival of a young widow (George) and her son (Sharron), and the pace steps up to near-pedestrian when Andrija suddenly gets to do his job by fishing the local SS commander out of the drink. Despite this rare flash of action, That Summer Of White Roses is a thoroughly dull experience, with Tom Conti, all facial mulling and gentle North Country vowels, never quite managing to convince. Susan George does her best to look sincere as the most unlikely wife of a Resistance leader since Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca, while Rod Steiger in his half-dozen scenes as the local Wise Man suggests a lived-in integrity and little else.
Pleasant enough to look at, but with less tension than a picnic.