Games of Love and Chance

A film set on a housing estate outside Paris. A group of school students. All of them live on the same estate. Lydia has found a costume. A long, embroidered eighteenth-century dress. A play is being prepared at school. A text by Marivaux. In the text masters and servants change places. Who is who, who loves whom; the play is built on it. Lydia works on her part. She repeats it constantly and will not drop the language. Krimo watches her. A quiet boy, and he likes her. He does nothing. Then he buys the part. He pays the friend who has it and takes his place. From there the film proceeds through rehearsals. Krimo cannot do the part at all. The text does not fit him. He cannot read the lines, his bearing is wrong, and the teacher keeps intervening. What the narrative is interested in is not love but language: its idea is that these young people are fast and fluent in their own speech, and that when asked to move into another they lock up entirely. The talking scenes are long. Everyone speaks at once, sentences are cut off, and there is shouting. The camera is handheld and very close to faces. There is a side line as well. Krimo's former girlfriend Magali will not accept it and spreads it through the group. There is a police stop on the estate. That section is short but changes the tone of the narrative completely. The play is staged at the end. Krimo is not in the audience. The narrative resolves nothing. Most of the cast are not professionals and were chosen from the area. The film took four César awards in France, including best film and best director. Abdellatif Kechiche directed. Osman Elkharraz, Sara Forestier, Sabrina Ouazani and Nanou Benhamou are in the cast. Who it is for: anyone who likes French social realism and stories about young people. Who it is not for: anyone looking for calm; the narrative is built on constant shouting and tires some viewers.