Jean-François i el sentit de la vida

A road trip movie about an obnoxious 13-year-old middle-class criminal brat. He steals a couple of hundred euro from his mother, runs away from home only because he's a spoiled brat, and meets up with an older girl who's also a middle-class criminal. They get a car (neither has a license) and drive from Catalonia (the autonomous region of Spain where Barcelona is) to Paris. Although the score is surprisingly pleasant (sounds classical), the movie is not funny or entertaining in any other way. Both kids are obnoxious, stealing and trashing anything they can as they drive to Paris. Dialog is mostly in Catalan, with lots of French and a little English. There are barely-adequate English subtitles for the Catalan dialog, but (bizarrely) only Catalan subtitles for the French and English dialog, so I have no idea what any of the French dialog was saying.

I saw this recently on Spanish television, dubbed in Spanish. Most memorable about this movie is the very high quality of the acting, in particular that of the two young stars; both are completely believable. The script goes in unexpected directions, and I appreciated that. The brief dream sequences have impact. Overall this is a good movie -- a story about teens that neither panders nor condescends.

Very enjoyable. Coming-of-age with intelligence. The protagonist is very likable. He is a very good character. Early on in the movie I stopped to study Camus. I'm very glad I did. I am very fond of philosophers and philosophy. And some of this movie made sense to me in terms of my life. Rejecting or being rejected. And totally misunderstanding something while being smart because of living in a different world.