Director: Olivier Assayas
Year Released: 2012
Rating: 2.0
A group of high school students in France come to believe they need to take part in the '68 protests going on in their country, so to do their part in Taking It To The Man, they deface school property, get in trouble for it and then, on break, go on a trip that involves Loving, Living and Exploring Their Own Natures. If the whole ambiguous, drifting nature of this seems familiar, it's because Assayas made a similar film in Cold Water - in this particular instance, I didn't feel like I got to know any of the characters particularly well, and their actions appear capricious at best: it may be true that (most) teenagers aren't the most focused societal group (I can attest to this on a regular basis), but I couldn't tell whether or not they felt concerned for their country (or themselves) as much as adrift in their own solipsistic fantasies. The best movies about late teen-hood (or even high school) empathize with the process-of-becoming-adults, but I never felt a connection to any of these individuals, and would have more than happily thrown most of them out of my class at any time (with detention, of course!).
