From the onset, Riad Sattouf’s debut film announces that it will tackle puberty and high school teenage romance with sight gags, insults and excessive amounts of saliva and other bodily fluid specimens. When it comes time to give the comedy any pertinence, the filmmaker has all the difficulty in the world at steering this away from all the below the belt, gross out humor that the lazy narrative is complacent in using. What will surely be a hit with home crowds, especially those belonging to the same demo as the film’s ensemble cast, the only noteworthy mention for Les Beaux Gosses (Beautiful Kids) is found in the casting choices for the film’s misfit leads which unfortunately only gets canceled out by the script’s intended use of them.
A comic-book artist by trade who visits growing pains in his work with regularity, Sattouf and co-scribe Marc Syrigas work from a wafer-thin storyline, which would explain why the production bets so much on close-up shots of mullet hair-dos, braces and pimple faced teens with awkward expressions. Non-actors Vincent Lacoste and Anthony Sonigo resemble a The Beavis & Butt-head duo who according to script, are too often caught with their pants down. When the taller of the two suddenly becomes a stud, the storyline focalizes on other distractions rather than the true complications it causes in their friendship.
If the screenplay wasn’t so determined on hammering down on these non-actor thesps that have the clout of not resembling anything close to what we normally see in 35mm, then there might have been some validity to their difficult experiences. Porn stash discoveries aside, the structure fails it heros because the art of locking lips is marinated with this endless supply of humiliation rather than humanity – too bad because the film’s final note is intentionally mature and poignant.
The anti-thesis of last year’s The Class, and comparably insignificant to Federico Veiroj’s Acné, unfortunately Les Beaux Gosses dumbs down this awkward passage in time by resorting to low grade, similar gross-out studio comedies specimen from Hollywood. Meant as a vulgar comedy with not many redeeming values or insight, Sattouf achieves such a status by emphasizing the cruel nature and never knowing how to give it a rest from time to time.
Reviewed at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. Director’s Fortnight Section.
90 Mins. May, 17th, 2009
