Winter Boy [Le Lycéen] *** (2022, Paul Kircher, Juliette Binoche, Vincent Lacoste) – Classic Movie Review 12,811

Paul Kircher as stars gay teenager Lucas, struggling to cope with the death of his father in an accident that may or may not have been suicide, in the richly textured 2022 French teen drama film Winter Boy [Le Lycéen].

Paul Kircher stars as 17-tyear-old Lucas, a French gay teenager who is shattered when the father he loves is killed in a car crash that may or may not have been suicide, in writer/ director Christophe Honoré’s richly textured, semi-autobiographical 2022 French teen drama film Winter Boy [Le Lycéen].

Though a slow, hesitant and uncertain healing process is in progress, in some ways Winter Boy is quite bleak and disturbing, As a study in coping with grief, the film is not very cheery or heart-warming, but Honoré’s subtle script and the actors’ raw, natural performances make it compelling and emotional. It is a long but engrossing film.

Lucas spirals off the rails in a state of emotional freefall, and embarks on a journey of sex and self-discovery, as he desperately struggles to cope and rediscover hope and love between his mother Isabelle (Juliette Binoche) with whom he now lives alone and his older brother Quentin (Vincent Lacoste) now settled in Paris. In a very French way, he views his life as a wild animal in need of taming.

To help her son, the desperate Isabelle sends Lucas off to Paris for a week with the rather distant, unhelpful and unengaged Quentin, and Lucas meets the much more interesting Lilio Rossio (Erwan Kepoa Falé), Quentin’s friend and roommate in Paris.

French actor Paul Kircher (born 2001).

Paul Kircher (born 2001), Binoche and Lacoste all give very fine performances, with Kircher and Binoche strongly emotionally stretched in difficult roles. It is extremely promising work from Kircher, the eldest son of actors Irène Jacob and Jérôme Kircher, but Binoche is way too canny to let him have it all his own way, and she is tremendous. Binoche has matured into an impressively forceful actress. It may be only a support performance, but she is a bright star.

Honoré chose Kircher from hundreds of actors and asked him to read the novel The Beautiful Room Is Empty by Edmund White in preparation. He later praised him for his ‘overwhelming sensitivity’.

The cast also includes Adrien Casse as his boyfriend Oscar and Honoré as the father,  Erwan Kepoa Falé as Lilio Rossio, Quentin’s friend and roommate in Paris, Adrien Casse as Oscar, Lucas’s high school boyfriend, Anne Kessler as Sonia, Elliot Jenicot as Thierry, Pascal Cervo as Father Benoît, Lawa Fauquet as Lilio’s mother, Matéo Demurtas as Gabriel, Xavier Giannoli, Wilfried Capet, Jean-Philippe Salerio, and Isabelle Thevenoux.

Release dates: September 9, 2022 (TIFF) and November 30, 2022 (France).

Running time: 122 minutes.

© Derek Winnert 2024 – Classic Movie Review 12,811

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