The French Kissers 2009

Hervé, Vincent Lacoste, is a teenage boy in junior high with ordinary looks and middling grades, living with his single mother in a housing estate in Rennes. He and his best friend Camel, Anthony Sonigo, often fantasize about their female classmates and their mothers, but have less luck with girls in reality. Their days are a mix of small dreams, shy dalliances, and the everyday humor of adolescence, all set against the backdrop of a close-knit, working-class neighborhood.

He begins to test their luck with romance at school, including Laura, Julie Scheibling, who agrees to a date more as a joke than a real romance. Then Aurore, Alice Trémolière, a beautiful and popular girl, asks him on a date, and they embark on an awkward, earnest relationship. The pair—and their circle of friends—navigate the mixed signals of first attraction, the thrill of closeness, and the awkward boundaries that come with growing up. Meanwhile, Hervé and Camel are frequently described as intimate, sometimes exploring their sexuality privately and together, a detail that underscores the film’s frank, unglamorous look at teen life.

Aurore eventually ends things when her friends try to grope her during a game of Dungeons & Dragons, and she discovers that Hervé has not been truthful about his experiences with her. The breakup marks a turning point as the characters edge toward high school, testing new relationships and the evolving dynamics of their friendships. The story closes with the group adjusting to older versions of themselves: Hervé is dating Sabrina, Camel is dating Jenifer, and Aurore is dating Wulfran, while Hervé’s mother, Noémie Lvovsky, is married to Anas’s father, Yannig Samot, signaling the persistence of family bonds even as the kids grow up.