Beautifully acted, this début feature by UK TV director Joanna Hogg trains a drily compassionate eye on the tensions that come to the fore as a group of privileged Brits loosen up in the Italian sun. Although its subjects could hardly be more articulately English, the film’s acute psychological observation and its cool measure of the dynamics of social embarrassment – not to mention its ravishing location – lend it a strikingly European flavour.

“The scene is a handsome rented villa in Tuscany, where a group of upper-middle-class, upper-middle-youth Brits are summering – that smug intransitive verb is somehow the only appropriate term... These are evidently two families who have known each other for many years, and they have brought along their spoilt children, who are 18 or so. The grown-ups enjoy leisurely meals and improving excursions; the OK-yah younger generation are permitted to whizz independently around in a little Fiat, trustingly lent by their parents’ friends. They drink and fool around by the pool late at night, smoke dope which contacts have posted to them from the UK in a jiffy bag, and refer contemptuously to their parents’ group as the ‘olds’. The key male figures are Oakley (Tom Hiddleston), a handsome, arrogant young dude who has a needling relationship with his father, George (David Rintoul), a blustering, vigorous, prosperous type, bald in a high-testosterone sort of way.

Into this situation steps fortysomething Anna (marvellously played by Kathryn Worth), who is an old schoolfriend of one of the women present. Anna is supposed to have come with her partner, but has actually arrived alone and in a state of some personal crisis... To the unease of almost everyone present, Anna starts to hang out with the youngsters... Unresolved sexual tension starts cranking up under the burning Italian sun, and Anna soon finds a crisis of loyalty between her new young pseudo-friends and the ever-present ‘olds.’ ” — Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

“Hogg’s knack of framing every picnic, twilight view and boozy supper like a painting reveals tiny, unexpected cracks... It’s a marvellous piece of cinema that looks as if it is being crafted before your eyes. Hogg spends wise minutes simply recording natural flavours: dusty fields; blasted sunflowers; the lights of a distant town. The performances by young and old are distractingly authentic... A serious treat.” — James Christopher, The Times

“This quietly trenchant low-budget drama is simply one of the most incisive and compelling British films in a while.” — Jonathan Romney, The Independent