Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

I found out about this French film because I remember seeing the title in the numerous editions of the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, it was almost a contender in the Oscars category for Best Foreign Language Film, but it was nominated, I was looking forward to trying it. Basically set in southwest France in 1962, shy young man François Forestier (Gaël Morel) from the lower middle class is working towards his high school diploma. He spends most of time talking about movies and literature with his best friend Maïté Alvarez (Élodie Bouchez), whose mother Madame Alvarez (Michèle Moretti) is François's French teacher, she and her son are communists. At the boarding school, François becomes acquainted with immigrant farmers' son Serge Bartolo (Stéphane Rideau), they join in the dormitory at night for a chat and are drawn into an erotic relationship. François discovers his homosexuality and develops a deep attraction for Serge, who had only acted out of curiosity. Maïté is disappointed when he confides in her about his feelings, she encourages him to come out of the closet, Serge becomes increasingly interested in her, but Maïté is not interested in anybody. Serge's brother Pierre (Eric Kreikenmayer) dies while serving in the army in Algeria, and Maïté's mother suffers a nervous breakdown, then Algerian-born French exile Henri Mariani (Frédéric Gorny) aggravates boarding school and political conflicts. Henri is obsessed with events in Algeria and supports the OAS (Organisation armée secrete, meaning Secret Army Organisation), which opposes Algerian independence and defends the rights of French settlers there. Henri treats François with no sympathy and tells him bluntly to confess to his homosexuality, his political stance provokes Serge's hatred, Henri finally engages Maïté as they give in to their mutual attraction. Each character develops through the course of the film, repeatedly shifting from stubborn positions to more flexible appreciations of their circumstances. Also starring Jacques Nolot as Monsieur Morelli, Nathalie Vignes as Irène, Michel Ruhl as Monsieur Cassagne and Fatia Maite as Aicha Morelli. This is a complex story about war, class, sexuality and responsibility, I did find it hard to keep up with everything going on, but it was great to watch for the beautiful French countryside and other shimmering images, a worthwhile drama. Good!

Well, actually, I exaggerate, it isn't really too bad, but I just feel obliged to balance off the hyperventilating praises that this film got from so many reviewers.This is a just so-so film that tells the lives and sexual awakenings of four teenagers in a school. The story itself is good, plainly told, and parts of it are well-done, and evocative of the feel at a particular time in history as well as of the confusion that teenagers can feel grappling with their sexuality and love lives.However, there are a number of problems. The acting of the main characters is really rather wooden (although the girl who played Maïté is an exception) - whether they are telling going through a personal crisis or telling an affecting story, there is little change in their expressions. The dialogue is sometimes verging on the silly - do young French people really constantly go round declaiming their thoughts and views in the way they do in this film? If you put some of the dialogue in the mouths of American teenagers and you will see how stupid and pretentious they are, but many reviewers seem to think that since it is French, it must be deep and profound rather than ridiculous.It is a shame that so many lose they critical faculty when judging non-American films. One reviewer claimed that it put 99% of American films to shame, when really, if truth must be told, the vast majority of foreign films are really quite poor, and this one is not an exceptional one. Some, perhaps the great majority, of the astonishing good and imaginative films in recent times comes out of America, while those from elsewhere often get stuck in retreading old stuff and mire in mediocrity. The awarding of the Palme D'Or this year to Ken Loach's utterly second-rate The Wind That Shakes the Barley is perhaps the ultimate example of this kind of blindness.

It is absolutely impossible to make a film like this one without carrying out the personal memories of an our own teenage time. That's why this so called 'teenage movie' is so far away from all other experiences within this field. Téchiné had written and directed a part of his own life. Villeneuve-sur-Lot, Paris, Lisbon, who cares? This is the movie of my life. And if it is so, it's not only because of the unexpected beauty of all frames on the movie, but, essentially because that I felt every inch of the road walked by the characters of this film, as if their experiences, a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, were my own teenage experiences and hopes. I saw this film ten years ago, and still I can remember every image, every phrase... And I kept these memories as a guideline for a future life, when I was 23 years old. I know what I have lived, I still don't know what the future reserves to me. But, on those days, ten years ago, I have increased my hope. I found that there was people like me, and like the others around me... The time and the place doesn't matter. No film will never make me feel so strongly about my youth, and, simultaneously, about my future as a man. This is not a 'teenage movie', it's a collection of memories about the construction of our personality. And, we all, with that age, were a little bit of François, Serge, Henri and Maite. And we still are. (...I'm sorry about my English...)

This is Techine's masterpiece and it is doubtful whether he will ever top it. It is a flawless, poetic film (no chain-smoking brain surgeons here, as in 'My Favorite Season'), and the only one in existence that deals (among many other themes)with budding homosexuality in an adolescent with such class and empathy. My favorite scene is when Techine refuses to offer any dialogue and lets the scene hang when Mrs.Alvarez meets the wife of Prof.Morelli who's been sitting in the car during Morelli's lunch with her (Mrs.Alvarez). I will not explain any further, you will have to see for yourself; great films are meant to seen and reseen as many times as it takes to erase the memory of mediocre ones.