Leurs Enfants Après Eux – first-look review

On a swel­ter­ing lake­side day in the sum­mer of 1992, it’s clear that Antho­ny (Paul Kircher) is not quite like oth­er kids his age. While the rest of them bask in the warm rays of sun donned in biki­nis and trunks, he sits timid­ly in a heavy bik­er jack­et. Despite his inca­pac­i­tat­ing gawk­i­ness his desire to fit in is inescapable. After steal­ing a canoe with his gre­gar­i­ous cousin (Louis Mem­mi), he meets Steph (Angeli­na Woreth) on a rick­ety wood­en pon­toon, who exudes an arche­typ­al girl-next-door radi­ance. No mat­ter how many times this sto­ry piv­ots and changes direc­tion, all roads lead back to the con­nec­tion between Antho­ny and Steph, as an off­hand invite to a house par­ty sets in motion a tem­pes­tu­ous jour­ney set over the next six years.

Back home in an unnamed north­east­ern French dein­dus­tri­al­ized town, a tense inter­ac­tion with his vio­lent father Patrick (Gilles Lel­louche) dri­ves Antho­ny to bor­row his motor­bike to get to the par­ty. As he sneak­i­ly wheels the bike out of the garage, his moth­er (Ludi­vine Sag­nier) catch­es him, and despite her ini­tial hes­i­ta­tion, she ulti­mate­ly encour­ages him to go, know­ing that Anthony’s rebel­lious phase is a rite of pas­sage. At the par­ty, the hus­tle and bus­tle of teens danc­ing and drink­ing is abrupt­ly halt­ed by the entrance of Hacine (Sayyid El Ala­mi), a young Moroc­can immi­grant who is con­sis­tent­ly reject­ed by the xeno­pho­bic com­mu­ni­ty that he inhab­its while expe­ri­enc­ing a cer­tain harsh­ness from the rel­a­tive he’s stay­ing with. An alter­ca­tion between Antho­ny and Hacine leads to the theft of Patrick’s trea­sured motor­bike, caus­ing an irrepara­ble rift with­in the already dete­ri­o­rat­ing fam­i­ly and cement­ing a dark teen rivalry.

Leurs Enfants Après Eux (And Their Chil­dren After Them) is direct­ed by twin broth­ers Ludovic and Zoran Boukher­ma who also adapt­ed the screen­play from Nico­las Mathieu’s 2018 nov­el of the same name (which won the esteemed French lit­er­ary award, the Prix Goncourt, just months after its release). As a view­ing expe­ri­ence, the Boukher­ma Broth­ers’ fourth film has plen­ty to offer, as each mag­nif­i­cent nee­dle drop thrusts you fur­ther into the sphere of the ear­ly 90s, be it The Red Hot Chilli Pep­pers, Pix­ies or Bruce Spring­steen. The slick and refined cin­e­matog­ra­phy fused with a vibrant­ly sat­u­rat­ed colour grade is pleas­ing, yet nev­er too osten­ta­tious to draw the atten­tion away from its main focus on the teenage leads.

The script stretch­es out across a 146-minute run­time and employs plen­ty of melo­dra­ma, but this tends to track with the often ardu­ous years of ado­les­cence, where every­thing in life feels far more drama­tised. On occa­sion, the nar­ra­tive feels repet­i­tive, yet the Boukher­mas embell­ish these moments as the sto­ry pro­gress­es with vari­ables that cul­mi­nate in the slow but steady growth of the char­ac­ters at its core. Yet, con­sid­er­ing the length of the film, Leurs Enfants Après Eux would have been enhanced by fur­ther explo­ration of themes it estab­lish­es ear­ly on notably the racism and islam­o­pho­bia faced by Arab immi­grants in France, which remains per­ti­nent to this day and con­tributes to Hacine’s com­bat­ive nature.

This is a true show­case of the young cin­e­ma tal­ent France has. Paul Kircher crafts an elab­o­rate por­trait of a trou­bled young man who des­per­ate­ly wants to find his place in soci­ety but can’t seem to stop falling back into his mis­chie­vous ways, and pos­sess­es a for­mi­da­ble abil­i­ty to evoke a wide range of emo­tions, from frus­tra­tion to empa­thy and every­thing in between. Sayyid El Ala­mi is sim­i­lar­ly cap­ti­vat­ing dur­ing his time on screen as Hacine, act­ing as both a par­al­lel and foil to Kircher’s Antho­ny, form­ing a dynam­ic rivalry.

Leurs Enfants Après Eux boils down to a tru­ly tena­cious com­ing-of-age flick, unwa­ver­ing in its com­mit­ment to giv­ing the char­ac­ters at hand the time and patience to devel­op at their own pace, tak­ing them and the audi­ence on a way­ward adven­ture where breezy laugh­ter can quick­ly turn into uneasi­ness. It’s all about the jour­ney rather than the des­ti­na­tion, and as Antho­ny and Steph final­ly ride off on Anthony’s own motor­bike, it feels as though for the first time the world is theirs for the taking.