In a routine look at what it means to finally leave adolescence behind — even in one’s mature years — this series of mood swings and sequences focuses on two grown men. Francois (Jean Francois Stevenin, the director) and Leo (Yves Alonso) are old friends, and at one point they decide to go out and search for one of their childhood buddies, the brunt of several of their practical jokes. In true form, the men opt for playing yet another practical joke on their friend, but their plans backfire when his wife Helene (Carole Bouquet) comes into the picture instead. Her presence forces them to reconsider their shenanigans in a new light.
Acting
Stévenin and Afonso's painfully authentic arrested adolescence.
Direction
Stévenin's self-aware lens on his own generation's refusal to grow up.

Director
Jean-François Stévenin
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Part of the 1980s French 'cinéma du look' adjacent movement, though Stévenin's naturalism stood deliberately apart from Beineix and Besson's glossy stylization.
Stévenin cast himself opposite his real-life friend Yves Afonso, blurring documentary and fiction in ways that discomforted contemporary critics.
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