Le Péril jeune

Le péril jeune is a 1994 French film directed by Cédric Klapisch. It is a comedy-drama starring among others Romain Duris (Tomasi), Nicolas Koretzky (Momo), Joachim Lombard (Léon), Vincent Elbaz (Alain Chabert), Julien Lambroschini (Bruno), Élodie Bouchez (Sophie), Julie-Anne Rauth (Marie), Hélène de Fougerolles (Christine), Lisa Faulkner (Barbara) and Jackie Berroyer (Jo). The movie takes place in Paris during the 1970s.

Plot

Ten years after having left high school, four friends, Momo, Léon, Alain and Bruno meet for the birth of the child of their friend Tomasi, who has died one month earlier of a drug overdose. They remember their youthful indiscretions during their last year in their Parisian high school during the seventies, such as demonstrations, first experiments with drugs and women and also the contents of the courses.

Characters

• Tomasi (Romain Duris) is a rebellious, fun-loving teenager. However, after meeting Barbara's friends, he starts taking drugs regularly and quickly becomes withdrawn and self-destructive, skipping classes and spending most of his time in Barbara's squat. He starts a relationship with Sophie, who eventually becomes the mother of his child. Tomasi died of a drug overdose shortly before the present-day events in the movie.

• Bruno (Julien Lambroschini) is Tomasi's closest friend, and the most artistically enclined of the group. He starts a relationship with Barbara, thus introducing his friends to the squat where she lives and the world of drugs. Because of this, and because he believes he could have saved Tomasi by being a better friend, Bruno blames himself for his death.

• Léon (Joachim Lombard) is the most politically conscious of the group. His brother is a dean at the high school, which causes some friction between the two, principally because his brother, having been involved in the May 1968 events, believes Léon's generation parrot previous ideas without knowing what they mean (a belief that is confirmed when Léon admits to not knowing what the class struggle is actually about). Léon is Class President, and often finds himself having to choose between fun with his friends and his responsibilities. He has an awkward crush on fellow class president Christine (Hélène de Fougerolles), but chooses not to act upon it because her preppiness is the target of her friends' ridicule, a decision which he later regrets.

• Momo (Nicolas Koretsky) is the son of a deaf-mute baker, with whom he has a strained relationship. Although his father considers it obvious that his son will become a baker, Momo has more ambitious aspirations and feels trapped by his father's expectations.

• Chabert (Vincent Elbaz) is a care-free teenager whose primary interests are sports and having fun. He is somewhat of a class clown, which often irritates his friends who consider him immature. Within the group, Chabert is the only one who seems to retain his innocence throughout the movie.

• Barbara (Lisa Faulkner) is a British student who came to France as an assistant English teacher. She lives in a squat with a large group of hippies, who indulge in heavy drug use (particularly LSD). She soon becomes Bruno's girlfriend, but the two eventually part when she heads back to England.

• Marie (Julie-Anne Roth) is a friend of the boys' who has conflicted views on feminism. While she advocates equality between the sexes, she at one point implies that being sexually harassed is somewhat flattering. She is very politically conscious, leading their friends to believe that she and Léon will eventually become a couple. Léon later explains that this very expectation kept them from ever dating.

External links

• Le Péril Jeune on the Internet movie data base
• Official website