Rindo à Toa

Every country boasts some films which are so legendary, that a whole generation has identified with their characters. In France, there is - among others - "La grande vadrouille" for the 60's, "La Boum" for the 80's and "LOL" for the 2000's. What "La Boum" did for the teenagers of the 80's, "LOL" did for their children. And, from the movie only, one can guess who had the most innocent childhood.

Like its predecessor, "LOL" has a plot clearly exaggerated for commercial purposes. The heroine, Lola (Christa Theret) - allegedly called "LOL" by her friends, although that doesn't happen in the film - is a teenager living with her single mother and her two siblings. Returning from the summer holidays, she learns that her boyfriend cheated on her, as she did on him. After that moment, her whole life revolves around her relationship, which is heading to an end, her having already found another boyfriend, the sweet Maël (Jérémy Kapone).

All this doesn't sound good to her mother (Sophie Marceau) who is worried about her daughter's dubious friends, more interested in experimenting with drugs and cybersex than performing well at school. To top it all, Lola's father serves more as a means of Lola getting what she wants, than a real family figure. The situation culminates after a trip to London, when Lola clashes with her mother, like never before.

The director, Lisa Azuelos, decided to make this film after noticing the lack of films about teenagers' lives in France. It is true that few teen movies have been made in that country. France didn't have its John Hughes, with maybe only Claude Pinoteau offering a relatively realistic portrayal of teenage psychology with "La Boum".

Unfortunately, the result of Azuelos's effort was mediocre at best, overrated at worst. As previously noted, the plot of the film is too exaggerated to be realistic, involving a class trip to London, drugs, and a love story between a woman and a drug-taking narcotics police officer (!). All this is shown as fun, but aren't exactly served well by the characters.

In its time, "La Boum" had made thousands of teenagers identify with its characters, full of charm and teenage enthusiasm. Belonging to a wholly different era, the heroes of "LOL" behave in other ways; they are more adult-like. For them, the risky thing is to take drugs, or to have sex with their companion, not to ride a motorcycle without helmet. They communicate with cellphones rather than telephones, and listen to music on MP3's rather than Walkmans. Another type of music has marked their generation; no slows here, "Little sister", "Somewhere only we know", are the hits of this age. The now more developed Internet has exposed them to more mature subjects than those their parents knew about in their age. But aren't they also teenagers? Yes, but those of an age marked by the rapid evolution of the Internet, and its consequences. They pretend to be mature, but at heart, they are no different from Vic and her friends, of "La Boum" fame.

It was this, shall I say, surface-level maturity, just being there to hide the characters' sentimental, even childish nature, that made the film unbearable. While "La Boum" was certainly no masterpiece, it presented teenagers' behaviour in a frank way, a mix between childishness and relevant maturity.

If we take "La Boum's" and "LOL's" protagonists, they have many things in common, being both quite selfish, yet loving young girls. Their families are facing trouble from within, and they both resort to their friends and boyfriends in order to find an outlet for their worries and anger. Psychologically, Vic and Lola are the same, but their commonalities end there. Their environment, their age where they grew up, is so distant from one another, that the only way they could interact is by clashing. That's why Lola clashes with her mother - ironically, or rather coincidentally, being interpreted by the actress who once had played Vic . Lola can't understand that her mother was also a teenager. The other can't see her daughter's problems for what they are. Gone are the boums, now teens are worried about serious problems.

And it was this disappointment of seeing the once young, zealous Vic clash with her daughter, with whom they have so much to share, the letdown that it was to see some teenagers hiding their real innocence for a fake, almost nonexistent one, that made me partly dislike this movie. It was a film that showed how Azuelos thought teenagers to be, but in its youthful energy lost its charm and became more of a portrait of a generation that seemed dishonest, although it was as accurate as it could be.

Yes, I know, this is confusing, even antithetic, but I still remain ambivalent over this film. For, its end has some scenes making me feel great joy, it partly stemming from the fact that all the relationship problems, all the family issues were resolved as if by magic.

Like in "La Boum".

Up until now I'd only seen the American remake of this film, and I was curious to see how they stack up against each other. Unfortunately if you pick this up on DVD/Blu-ray the subtitles are only in french. I managed to download some subtitles however, and I'm pleased to say this was a good teen movie! Although the story is identical in most respects, It's a little more gritty than the American version, and the writing is superb.

This French movie was recently re-made by director Azuelos as a Hollywood movie starring Miley Cyrus. Now if I were to suffer a heart attack while watching TV on my couch and I knew a Miley Cyrus movie was coming on later, I'd change the channel, even before calling 911, just so I was not literally found dead watching it. THIS French version appealed to me, however, first because I'm long-time fan of Sophie Marceasu. Few Americans probably remember that Marceau, when she herself was a young teen in the 80's, got her start in a movie called "La Boum" (which many of us saw in French class), which was somewhat similar to this. This film is a little more racy in its content (but certainly not very explicit), not because French teen mores have probably changed that much since the 80's, but because this movie focuses on somewhat older teens than "La Boum" did (sixteen-year-olds rather than thirteen-year-olds) and casual teen sex and drug use is taken more as a given. Marceau gets to play the mother of the teen this time, and what apparently HASN'T changed is that the parents of teens in French movies are far more attractive than they probably are in real-life and are way too self-involved in their own sex lives (Marceau's character is torn between her ex-husband and a new affair with dope-smoking narcotics officer) to be very effective parents. There's no doubt SOME truth in that though.

I first saw the actress who plays the daughter, Christa Theret, in a small but very sexy role in the recent art film "Clink of Ice" where she plays the dying protagonist's younger mistress. The actress herself is quite young though and was still a teen herself when she tackled this role. Her various boyfriends, however, all look to be twenty-something male models and dress like members of The Cure circa 1985 while listening to the Rolling Stones circa 1970 (while I'm sure most real-life French teens probably listen to the same Justin Beiberesque crap all teens generally seem to these days). Her main boyfriend, "Mael", has his own problems with an overbearing father who considers his schooling more important than the (actually pretty good)band he plays in.

There are several annoying things in this movie besides the adults being a little too vapid to be sympathetic and some of the teens being to mature-looking to be believable. I don't think even in France teens drug their sympathetic yet dimwitted grandmothers so they can have a party in their house (nor should such a thing probably be encouraged). And the gang all travels to England at one point, and their Brit hosts are all portrayed as unattractive and incredibly stupid--they can't tell they're being insulted in French and they allow one boy-girl couple to spend the night together after they claim to be long-lost cousins. Oh yeah, then there's the strange scene (prominently featured in the trailer) where Marceau and Theret take a bath together (but don't get too excited because they don't actually show anything).

This is no great shakes, but I'm confident it's vastly preferable to the American re-make (not that I'LL ever know. . .). Not worth seeking out perhaps, but worth seeing if it's ever released outside of France.

The french original - a movie that probably lesser people have seen than the US remake ... which as you can tell by my rating I consider a "tragedy" (this might be overstating it, but you get where I'm heading with it). Sophie Marceau is best known for some of her movies in the 80s ... I had not seen her in a while before seeing this, which probably is more on me than on her. And while I admire her looks and I think she has aged more than gracefully (which is something that sadly cannot be said about other actresses - the pressure of the movie and beauty industry getting to them), it is her acting here that will entice you.

I've said it on the page of the remake, but I'll say it here again: While Demi Moore is a fine actress, if you compare the two performances and the movies in general, this one is the clear cut winner. The movie does concentrate mostly on the girls (teenagers), but gives us other perspectives as well. The dialog and the scenes feel genuine .. like real life and not something put upon by a script writer ... which I reckon is the highest honor ... or close to it when it comes to screenplays. If you don't have issues with subtitles or are fluent in French, go ahead and make your day.

I don't wish to spoil this for anyone else - I read another review which said he'd seen Sophie in Braveheart and he wished this movie "Lol" had English subtitles. In Australia SBS shows all the foreign "non-English" films with subtitles.

If you are after a mother / daughter problems / boyfriends story with a happy ending . . . go for it. There were some interesting story lines and subplots of relationships.

Sophie was 42 when this movie was made. She was 29 when she played a French princess in the 14th century Scottish / English historical tale with Mel Gibson. I also preferred her part in the movie "Anthony Zimmer" a suspense French police / Russian mafia drama.