Éric Rohmer's The Green Ray and the warm loneliness of summer
The 1986 film follows a young woman named Delphine (Marie Rivière), as she navigates loneliness, existential crisis, and social anxieties over the course of a summer holiday. Sound familiar?
There are two things French director Éric Rohmer seemed to understand in the world: seasonality and its transformative powers on the human spirit. While he has a series of films explicitly based on each season, much of his work still requires his characters to interact with temporal expectations, and their experiences are shaped by where this leads them. This idea is never clearer than in his 1986 offering, The Green Ray, in which a young woman named Delphine (Marie Rivière) navigates loneliness, existential crisis, and social anxieties over the course of a summer holiday.
The dogs days of summer can illuminate a lack in one’s interpersonal life, whether it be their within their circle of friends, family ties, or romantic prospects. One’s world can reasonably contract in the frigid winters, naturally becoming smaller, cozier, and more rooted. When the cool melts and spring heralds in an expansion of life, the gaps in one’s social and personal life can become more clear, inducing a renewed desire for connection. If you happen to find yourself more alone than you’d like, it’s hard not to feel the pressure to radically change your circumstances before summer’s end.
The Green Ray captures this isolating, yearning feeling well, as Delphine moves amongst the buzzing crowds of beachgoers alone, attempting and failing to enjoy her suddenly solo travels. Everyone else has planned vacations with partners or family, leaving her to grapple with her looming loneliness after the collapse of a relationship. Wherever Delphine goes, she’s surrounded by other people giggling, kissing, and seeking out skin to skin contact despite the rise in temperatures. There’s a levity to summer, and it’s a time to take the days slow and the romances fast, basking in the sun and water and heat. The time seems teeming with romantic possibility, as the warm air mingles between balmy bodies looking for a connection to pass the idling days. The air feels sweeter, but without someone to share it with it can feel like ripe fruit rotting with wasted potential. With constant reminders all around you, it’s hard to ignore the spoilage.
While Delphine comes across as undoubtably sensitive in the film, Rohmer taps into the panic spurred by not having access to the typical, positive experiences of others. An inquiry into personal topics can feel like an attack, as we see with Delphine’s defensiveness over her friends inquisitions into her dating life. The insecurity induces a type of paranoia, one that revolves around the idea that everyone sees just how alone and pitiful you are. It feels incredibly vulnerable to speak on wanting the things in life everyone else seems to have, especially when it comes to love. It’s like a bruise that’s poked and prodded at so it never heals properly, furthering feelings of soreness over the subject. An introverted Delphine tries to share her pain, but her tears ultimately drown out any meaningful conversation, leaving her even more misunderstood by those around her.
Often—as shown in The Green Ray—chats with friends about issues of deep-seeded loneliness and insecurity don’t always bear fruitful advice. People always have some sort of prescription about one’s behavior and mindset, urging you to try this or try that, or to just not think about it at all despite the constant reminders. Delphine even gets the old standby, “It happens when you least expect it,” concerning her romantic future. This form of topical advice comes from nearly everyone Delphine interacts with, and they consistently urge her to be something she’s not: Forthright, confident, and careless. Her refusal to play the brash and bold dating game could place the blame for her loneliness on herself, but it’s easy to sympathize with Delphine’s yearning for a deep spark, and not some passerby with wandering eyes and short-sighted intentions.
All of this makes Delphine’s teary monologue over dinner with her fellow solo vacationer all the more heart-wrenching:
“I’m not like you, I’m just not. Things aren’t all that easy for me. I’m not normal like you. If I had anything to show, people would have seen it by now. If I get dumped it’s my own fault. When I make an effort, I try to listen and talk to people. I’m open to others. I don’t know how I could be more open. I watch what people are doing. If people don’t approach me, it’s because that’s just how I am. Because I’m worthless.”
To want certain things and not receive them while those around you find connections easily can feel othering, as though the problem lies within your supposed natural incompatibility with everyone else. It becomes a repeated inner dialogue—renewed with each failed attempt—that feels truer and truer each time. But no one is ever destined to be alone, even if we are lonely for extended periods. While The Green Ray is the quintessential film about summer heartache, it also maintains the idea that like other mystical phenomena, tender connection can surprise us with its timing.
*The Green Ray is currently available to stream on The Criterion Channel*