The Worst Ones

A film crew comes to a neighbourhood in Boulogne-sur-Mer. They cast in the street; not professional actors, they are looking for children from here. Four are chosen. The people in the neighbourhood are surprised: the ones chosen are the most difficult children at the school. Shooting begins. The director Gabriel asks hard scenes of them and in doing so enters their lives. One boy plays his own family in a scene. In the evening the crew goes back to the hotel and the children go home. When the film is finished the crew will leave. Lise Akoka directs with Romane Gueret; it is the first feature for both. Mallory Wanecque, Timeo Mahaut, Johan Heldenbergh and Loic Pech are in the cast. It is a French production. The film won the Un Certain Regard award at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival. The two directors had worked as casting directors and coaches for child actors; the narrative rests directly on that experience. The children really were found through street casting and are from the region. The matter it treats is cinema's relation to its own material; using real poverty to make a film is put in question. The narrative does not show the director as ill intentioned, and that choice makes the question harder. The scenes of the film within the film are given with the actual conditions of a shoot. The narrative does not ask pity for the children; they are coarse, quick with an answer, and make their own decisions. The ending does not say what happens once the shoot is over. Its limit is structure; the narrative is loose, the plot weak, and the ending open. Who it is for: viewers who like French independent cinema and films about the cinema. Who it is not for: it is loose, uncomfortable, and the ending unresolved.