Ni d'Ève, ni d'Adam

The potentially touching (if far from original) premise of a girl's redemptive love for a "misunderstood" loser is spoiled by straining for effect and overall implausibility. Talented direction of young actors, but an immature view of the human condition that lacks the feeling of sacredness that its Bresson-like references to religion seem to seek. Less would have been more.

The first part depicts a bleak world : a suburb where some young boys and girls have no future at all.There are good realistic scenes: the father who wants to see his son's essay and his schoolbag full of crumpled papers ;the "wedding" ; the dinner in the pal's house;the boy screaming in the night and asking his dad to let him in.

Following a misunderstanding ,he has got to runaway with his girlfriend and then the movie fails to convince.Using a score which looks like church music ,the film turns romantic ,in spite of a very violent scene -and totally unconvincing:why kill the child?- .The "heroes" are on their own in the nature .Is the last scene some kind of christening? of redemption?

"Ni d'Eve ni d'Adam" means roughly "nobody's child"