Leurs enfants après eux

In the industrial valleys of Eastern France, during a scorching summer, fourteen-year-old Anthony (Paul Kircher) comes of age. Between barbecues, moped rides, and afternoons by the lake, he steals his father's motorcycle to impress the beautiful Stéphanie (Angelina Woreth) and confronts the disillusioned world of adults, embodied by his parents (Ludivine Sagnier and Gilles Lellouche). The Boukherma brothers' film is a chronicle of this youth dreaming of elsewhere, set against a backdrop of extinguished blast furnaces.

Adapting Nicolas Mathieu's literary and sociological fresco was a risky endeavor. The film succeeds in capturing its essence: the humid and melancholic atmosphere of those adolescent summers where everything seems possible and nothing really is. The camera accurately captures the landscapes, the bodies, and the boredom. While fans of the novel may regret the absence of certain details and the simplification of the book's political scope, it's clear that the spirit is there, condensed into a sincere and touching slice of life.

The film's great strength lies in its cast. The young duo, led by Paul Kircher, offers a welcome freshness in their performance. Their acting, at times raw and unpolished, brings an undeniable credibility and authenticity to the characters. It is precisely this lack of perfection that makes their emotions so palpable, far from overly polished interpretations. As a counterpoint, Gilles Lellouche is impeccable as the weary and quiet father, bringing a density and gravity that firmly anchor the story in its social reality.

Where the film may leave something to be desired is in its narrative thread. By choosing to focus on the adolescent chronicle, the script follows a rather linear and predictable trajectory. One can easily guess what happens next, and the film won't surprise with its plot twists. However, this choice can be seen not as a weakness, but as a deliberate decision to prioritize emotion over plot. The stake is not so much the suspense as the accuracy of the feeling, the portrait of an age and a territory.

"And Their Children After Them" is a sensitive and successful adaptation, a coming-of-age film that is moving in its sincerity and the accuracy of its actors, even if it doesn't reach the novelistic power and complexity of the original work.

Featuring a wide range of French movie stars (Gilles Lellouch and Ludivine Saignier among others) as well as raising stars such as Raphael Quenard and Paul Kircher, the film had everything to lead to a success: An ambitious scenario with social struggle in the background, a very moral outcry against racial stereotypes, and beautiful faces to play the roles of loving teenagers. All in all, a full range of ingredients of a box-office hit were gathered. However the well prepared recipe doesn't work, leading to a nauseating overdose of namby-pamby sentimentality orchestered by an insisting 90's soundtrack.

As I said a few times in my previous reviews, a good book doesn't make a good film, just as good ingredients don't make a good dish. Doing a film is way different from writting a book and the emotion must be contextualized in some key scenes that this film is utterly deprived. And music can't save it all ! I am sorry but it's not because I hear Withney Houston's "I will always love you" that I'll be necessarily moved by a kiss or a love scene. It seems that the director relies too much on this technique to arouse our teenagers' memories.

The very acclaimed book (of Nicolas Mathieu, from which this story comes from) focuses on portraits of young teenagers living in the suburbs of eastern France in the 1990s, with the backdrop of the region's deindustrialization in the background. And so does the film... but in a clumsy way. The dialogs, many "key" scenes and the storytelling are most of the time unrealistic. It was, and it is a very interesting subject indeed but the way in which this theme is treated and interpreted is crucial. I have to admit that some of the actors are fairly good (Anthony's best friend, the girl friend and Gilles Lellouch of course as the father) but some others are off-putting mainly because the film is not very well written and some scenes are cheesy. For instance, I was disappointed by the performance of Ludivine Saigner, a good actress without a shadow of a doubt but certainly questionable in her role of a popular mum disenchanted by her drunk husband.

I may be even harsher when it comes to Paul Kircher, who plays the role of Anthony, the main character. Although he was brilliant in Animal Kingdom, he seems constantly mistaken in that film in which he wanders from place to place without lifting his face and without changing his attitude throughout the film ! He is permanently plunged into some sort of a teenage depression from beginning to end and there is barely an evolution from the starting point to the end in Anthony's attitude so it's hard to believe he is learning anything good from all his hard blows.

A lot of things fall short especially the key moments of Anthony's life. To me, everything goes too fast and is most the time poorly represented.

For instance, Anthony at the beginning of the film is supposed to be 14 . He's shy, clumsy, ugly like any other kid of his age and he rebels against his parents. How on earth does he manage to talk to absolute georgeous teenage girls who actually look 20 (+) in a deserted beach near a lake? How does this teenage low class boy manage to join a drugfree party in a beautiful house without drawing attention and how does he dare to challenge the local gangsters in an unfamiliar environment at the age of 14 ? Plenty of scenes are like this, just like when he reveals to the spectators how much he loves the girl by provoking a fight with her new lover, naked in the snow in front of a crowd...(!).

Not very credible is it ?

I've got the same feeling with the "vilain", the sensation of being had with something not very credible. Hacine, the vilain, after two years of exile in Morrocco comes back as Tony Montana in his neighborhood all by himself and with the confidence of a well-known gangster. How am I supposed to believe that? Wouldn't it be interesting to bring him up to a leading part with a true contrast with Anthony, instead of assigning him a role in which vengeance is the only goal he has ? Quite a pity if you consider how magnetic this actor can be.

Last but not least: the love story. I said earliier that Angelina Woreth (the girl friend of Anthony) is fairly good, reserved but with charisma. However, the contrast with the main teenager character of Anthony is way too big. The key scenes are just not there to make us understand their fatal attraction to one another. The love story, to me, never really happens, there is no obvious reason to it. So we are almost surprised when it becomes real.

I will end up this bad review with a good point and a question mark. Gilles Lellouche, the father of Anthony, is excellent, brilliant, touching, even frightening sometimes. His acting is perfect as always, he perfectly depicts the backdrop of the region and the lack of sense for the people like him left in the lurch. I just wonder how much of a coincidence it is that Gilles Lellouche acts in a film that is strangely very similar to his (Beating Hearts) which was in theatre a few weeks ago. The same appetite for music, violence and teenage romance... The same injunction to 90's nostalgia. Quite disturbing to have two very similar films done partially by the same people.

My bet is that this film (Leurs Enfants Apres Eux) will not be as cult as Beating Hearts by missing the key moments of the storytelling and by a rather cheesy representation of this epoch.

I don't want to be misunderstood, or mislead the people who read this review: I have put a 2/10 because it carried a part of desillusion and I did have some expectation going to theatre to see this film. It could perfectly be a 4 or a 5 but clearly not a success for the directors who, (to me) partially failed in the depiction of this social drama.