Starring: Paul Delbreil, Adèle Csech, Samuel Fasse
Director: Michaël Dacheux
Country: France
Things turn out a little differently from what you expected as a teenager. Lea (Csech) has moved to Paris to start a new life, but when her ex-boyfriend Martin (Delbreil) follows her in a last-ditch attempt to reconcile, she makes it very clear that their teenage relationship is over. Over the course of the next year, the pair find their own way within the capital, with Lea embarking on a relationship with a much older man while Martin finds himself for the first time falling in love with another man (Fasse).
The film is split into four chapters, which each covers a season. None are more interesting than the others, because the film suffers severely from Inactivity Syndrome as the couple boringly find their way in life without each other. Neither are particularly interesting characters as they internalise their feelings and spend much of the narrative observing silently, or speaking a lot but saying very little. Thus the film gets bogged down in exposition that has no bearing on the piece either narratively or thematically and makes you wonder why on earth these characters are being given the big screen treatment.
The film starts and ends abruptly, drifting in and out of their lives like a light flashing on and off. A scene between the pair bookends the story, but in between they float around on their own unrelated tangents. Fans of watching hours of unedited CCTV might find this mildly engaging, whereas fans of cinema will find themselves reaching for the remote.