It’s not uncommon for a summer movie to include aspects of travel, sandy beaches and scantily clad women being the object of sexual desire. But in Laurent Cantet’s new film “Heading South,” starring Charlotte Rampling, those typical summer fare elements are anything but typical.  Charlotte Rampling’s character, Ellen, is a single 55-year-old college literary professor who vacations regularly at a seaside Haitian resort in the 70s. Ellen and her middle-aged female tourist companions enjoy the life of leisure, while fulfilling sexual freedoms and fantasies with poor, young black boys from the town who happily receive payment in the form of money, food and gifts for service rendered.  “I always told myself that when I’m old I’d pay young men to love me,” Ellen matter-of-factly admits. “I just didn’t think it would happen so fast.”

Ellen and company, but mostly Ellen, spew out wit and wisdom concerning the state of middle-aged sexuality. Initially, everything about the situation appears to be very innocent and superficial, with both parties serving as willing participants and benefiting equally. That is until a new traveler joins their ranks. While Brenda, played by Karen Young, eventually admits, in one way or another, to having the same sexual urges as the other women, she is more conflicted and less inclined to submit to a purely one-dimensional relationship. When the object of Brenda’s sexual and emotional desires becomes Ellen’s constant companion, Legba (Menothy Cesar), Ellen is challenged on her seemingly unaffected, sex-for-fun-only stance. Soon the lines between lust and love become blurred. Legba is caught in the middle while battling his own demons in the “real world,” which for him is a volatile political climate with Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier and his thugs in charge.