Boys will be boys

With one million viewers in France and three major awards, Riad Sattouf's directorial debut "Boys will be boys", is one of the big hits of the French cinema year 2009. Now this charming look at the most difficult time of adolescence is coming to our cinemas.

Puberty: that means pimples, overflowing hormones and annoying parents. Even Hervé (Vincent Lacoste) has to deal with his uncontrollable libido and his somewhat too understanding mother. Too bad the fourteen-year-old doesn't get along with the girls at his school. But then Aurore (Alice Tremolieres), of all people, the most beautiful girl in his class, makes advances to him. But instead of enjoying it, Hervé, who is completely overwhelmed by the situation, puts his foot in his mouth. As a result, he could lose not only Aurore, but also his best friend Camel (Anthony Sonigo). Oh, what a stupid time puberty is...

"Boys will be boys" shows in some scenes puberty from its really unattractive side. Here the teens are not all flawless and attractive, pimples are not hidden by thick make up. This is refreshing and in a very special way also seems sympathetic. But unfortunately, in other aspects Sattouf falls too much into the clichés so common in teen comedies. This is especially the case in the way the characters are drawn. True, they too are closer to reality than in American films like "American Pie". Nevertheless, Hervé, Camel and Co. also remain too much clichés to do justice to the honesty with which their very everyday problems are portrayed.

So "Boys will be Boys" leaves a somewhat ambivalent impression. The refreshingly uninhibited main actors and the realistic staging stand in contrast to the somewhat too clichéd characters. There is also the question of who the film is actually aimed at. Surely, teenage viewers could finally feel properly understood here. However, pubescent moviegoers would rather see libido-stimulating attractive people and not oversized pimply faces. Older viewers will certainly find a lot of fun in taking a little trip down memory lane and reliving the horror of their own puberty in such an amusing way. But for these viewers, the humor of the film is then but a little too much oriented to the youthful target audience.

Just this dilemma will make it rather difficult for the film to appeal to a wide audience in Germany. But surely numerous moviegoers here will be charmed by the uninhibited charm of the film, which has made "Jungs bleiben Jungs" so successful in its home country. Therefore applies: for lovers of French youth comedies of the somewhat different kind quite worth seeing!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp