Film review: Summer in February: as vivid as a Munnings masterpiece

We like our artists to be larger than life and preferably bohemian, even if nowadays we’ve had to accept that the ones we hear about are more likely to live in a castle than a garret. Sir Alfred Munnings (1878–1959) began life as an artist in true bohemian style, carousing with gypsies and horse-trainers, living rough and constantly on the road, painting at full-stretch. On form, he was a superb painter of horses and English country life, and although he is denigrated as a reactionary by the current art establishment, his paintings still sell for large sums. He ended up covered in honours as President of the Royal Academy, but remained a controversial figure, publicly damning modern art in a live broadcast from the RA banquet in 1949. This film is based on a little-known episode from his early life, when he lived at Lamorna in Cornwall, with a group of friends and models who included the painters Laura Knight and her husband Harold.

The opening sequence offers a close-up of a girl’s eyes cut with shots of a strongly running sea: love interest and uncontrollable forces are swiftly established. A potent score by Benjamin Wallfisch tunes the heart to romantic response, and the stage is set for a moving and highly enjoyable costume drama. Art is sexy these days, so Munnings is played by Dominic Cooper, irrepressible as an electric eel and twice as dangerous (to himself as much as to his friends), while his rival is the marvellously restrained Gilbert Evans, expressively played by Downton star Dan Stevens. The object of their opposing desires is tyro painter Florence Carter-Wood, interpreted to great effect with crisp surface and dark indecision by Emily Browning.