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.
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