The French Kissers (Les beaux gosses)

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Australian audiences are destined to begin and end 2009 in a French classroom. Pourquoi? Early 2009 was spent watching Laurent Cantet’s Palme D’Or winning The Class (Entre les murs), fascinating in François Bégaudeau’s unvarnished and compassionate look at his own life teaching in a multicultural Parisian school. Comparatively, The French Kissers (Les beaux gosses) feels like the students are taking their right of rebuttal. Cartoonist/graphic novelist turned director Riad Sattouf has brought his own inked high school to life with a raucous, ribald and alarmingly reminiscent take on teenagers.


Fronting a superb ensemble cast is Vincent Lacoste as Hervé, your typical, hormonally charged and scholastically disinterested 14 year old, who would be blind if the old wives’ tale about masturbation were true. Utterly committed to the task of finding a girlfriend, Hervé and his longhaired sidekick Carmel (Anthony Sonigo) do all they can to win over the fairer sex. Awkwardness, miss-fires and some revelatory ‘sock time’ follow until Hervé finally locks lips with the lovely Aurore (Alice Trémolière).

Laying bare the nature of teenage sexuality against the backdrop of single parent households (that subplot being yet another source of embarrassed chuckles), The French Kissers is a brilliantly paced, fabulously directed debut by Sattouf. Opening on Boxing Day, it’s a fun and frisky romp that promises enough laughs to tempt you away from your summer holidays, and back into the classroom.


Published on Concrete Playground
Australian release date: 26 December 2009