Being 17 [Quand on a 17 ans] **** (2016, Sandrine Kiberlain, Kacey Mottet Klein, Corentin Fila, Alexis Loret) – Classic Movie Review 12,732

André Téchiné’s 2016 French romantic drama Being 17 is a complex, emotional and mature film, with the focus on two teenage boys (Kacey Mottet Klein, Corentin Fila) and their story, but Sandrine Kiberlain deservedly gets much screen time as the mother.

Director André Téchiné’s 2016 French coming-of-age romantic drama Being 17 [Quand on a 17 ans] is an exceptionally complex, emotional and mature film, with the focus on two teenage boys (Kacey Mottet Klein, Corentin Fila) and their story, but Sandrine Kiberlain deservedly gets much of the screen time as the mother. It is set high in the Pyrenees in south-west France, and has a beautiful visual splendour, excitingly captured by cinematographer Julien Hirsch.

The layered, detailed, subtle screenplay by Téchiné with Céline Sciamma follows the romantic and sexual awakening of two 17-year-old boys as their initial violent animosity morphs into love. The mountain backdrop is a strong character in the film, filling the deliberately empty spaces in the dialogue, as the boys struggle to communicate and express themselves and their feelings. This is tricky to pull off, but Téchiné does, and his film is very cinematic as a result. It isn’t at all a matter of boys talking. It smoulders as the boys do. Emotions are strong but they are mostly internal. The two young actors make a grand job of their work, also tricky to pull off. That is the main reason the film has such a hard emotional punch.

The film stars Kacey Mottet Klein.

Kacey Mottet Klein stars as nice 17-year-old schoolboy Damien Delille, who lives with his brisk and highly capable doctor mother Marianne (Sandrine Kiberlain) while his rescue helicopter pilot father Nathan Delille (Alexis Loret)) is on a tour of duty abroad with the French military. Closet gay Damien is model student at his Alpine village school, where he is targeted to be bullied by class bully Thomas Chardoul (Corentin Fila), who is repressing his homosexuality. So there are degrees of being closeted and of being repressed, and this film explores this idea in much, convincing, valuable detail.

Thomas lives in the farming community high up in the mountains and is the adopted son of cattle farmers Jacques Chardoul (Jean Fornerod) and Christine Chardoul (Mama Prassinos). He is an unexpected bully. But Damien taking self-defence lessons from his army veteran neighbour Paolo (Jean Corso) and learns to fight back against Thomas.

Sandrine Kiberlain.

Then Marianne diagnoses that Thomas’s sick mother is pregnant, and invites the boy to come to stay with them while she is taken into hospital, so Damien must try to learn to live with the boy who bullied him. The boys are forced to play friends, fight in secret, yet bond over confidences, while Damien’s grades slip because of his crush on Thomas, who takes over as class champion thanks to home tutoring.

Shooting took place in and around Bagnères-de-Luchon in winter early in 2015 and then later in the summer (from 25 June-31 July 2015).

Being 17 [Quand on a 17 ans] finds Téchiné making his 21st feature film and returning to the theme of adolescent love more than 20 years after his 1994 hit Wild Reeds.

Released: 14 February 2016 (Berlin) and 30 March 2016 (France).

Corentin Fila as Thomas Chardoul.

The cast are: Sandrine Kiberlain as Dr Marianne Delille, Kacey Mottet Klein as Damien Delille, Corentin Fila as Thomas Chardoul, Alexis Loret as Nathan Delille, Jean Corso as Paulo, Jean Fornerod as Jacques Chardoul, and Mama Prassinos as Christine Chardoul.

Duration: 116 minutes.

Country: France.

Production: Wild Bunch, Fidélité Films, France 2 Cinéma, La Banque Postale Image 8, Région Midi-Pyrénées, and SCOPE Pictures

The film’s title is derived from the first verse of Arthur Rimbaud’s 1870 poem Roman: ‘On n’est pas sérieux quand on a dix-sept ans’ (“When you are seventeen you aren’t really serious”).

It had excellent word of mouth, but awards were few and the box office was disappointing. Budget: $6 million. Box office: $2.1 million. It won the Grand Jury Award at Outfest.

Céline Sciamma is the director of three coming-of-age films: Water Lilies (2007), Tomboy (2011) and Girlhood (2014).

© Derek Winnert 2023 – Classic Movie Review 12,732

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