Featuring a wide range of French movie stars (Gilles Lellouch, Ludivine Saignier, Raphael Quenard + Paul Kircher - the main actor) , an ambitious scenario with social struggle in the background and an outcry against racial stereotypes, the film seemed to have all the ingredients of a box-office hit. However the well prepared recipe doesn't work, leading to a nauseating overdose of namby-pamby sentimentality orchestered by an insisting 90's soundtrack.
Once again, as I said a few times in my previous reviews, a good book doesn't make a good film, and 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 his pick for music and on our teenagers's memories. The trick might work at the beginning of the film but it becomes pathetic after 2 hours and a half.
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, against the backdrop of the region's deindustrialization. And so does the film... but in a clumsy way at almost every step of the film making the dialogs, the scenes and the storytelling ungenuine and absolutely unrealistic. It's a very interesting subject indeed but the way in which this theme is treated and interpreted is crucial. The performances of the main actors are inequal. Some of them are fairly good (Anthony's best friend, the girl friend, the father) and some others are off-putting sometimes (not a very convincing come-back from Ludivine Saigner) but most of all Paul Kircher, the main character, plunged into teenage depression from beginning to end. Besides, the omnipresent music is imposed on us time and again as an injunction to emotion and 90s nostalgia which worsens the whole impression I reckon.
A lot of things fall short specially the way the director depicts the key moments of Anthony's life and the emotions they trigger in him. Everything goes too fast, specially the love story, but also his family situation that is not that clear. There is barely an evolution from the starting point to the end in Anthony's attitude, and the main character struggles to make us believe he is learning anything good from all his hard blows. The main actor, Paul Kircher who was brilliant in Animal Kingdom seems to be mistaken in that film in which he wanders from place to place without lifting his face ever, and without changing his attitude throughout the film.
There are many unrealistic things. For instance, Anthony at the beginning of the film is supposed to be 14 . He's shy, clumsy and he rebels against his parents like any other teenager. 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, and how does he dare to challenge the local gangsters at the age of 14 ?
I've got the same bad feeling with the "vilain". Wouldn't it be interesting to bring him up to a leading part instead of assigning him a role in which vengeance is the only goal he has ? And how is it possible that after two years of exile in Morrocco, he comes back as Tony Montana in his neighborhood all by himself and with the confidence of a well-known gangster.
Last but not least: the love story. We can see it coming, but it never really happens. So we are almost surprised when Anthony gets upset when the girl finds another boyfriend and most of all... we don't understand why she accepts Anthony's weird reactions and why on earth she falls in love with such a loser (being older than him)? The film doesn't tell.
I will end up this very bad review with a good point and a question mark. Gilles Lellouche, the father of Anthony, is excellent, brilliant, touching. His acting is perfect as always . I wonder how much of a coincidence it is that he's acting in a film that is strangely very similar to his (Beating Hearts) which was in theatre a few weeks ago. The same 90's nostalgia, the same appetite for music, violence and teenage romance...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. Please avoid.
