Being 17

Plot

Smart and sensitive, Damien is a seventeen-year-old student who lives with his mother Marianne, a doctor. His father, Nathan, is a military pilot on a mission abroad. They enjoy a comfortable life in a small town located in a valley among the mountains of the Hautes-Pyrénées.

In high school, Damien gets picked on by Thomas, a classmate, who trips him in the middle of class for no apparent reason. From then on there are constant altercations between them while playing sports and in the schoolyard. Both are outsiders at school chosen last for sports teams. In order to protect himself, Damien takes self-defense classes with Paulo, an ex-military family friend.

Meanwhile, Thomas, who is the bi-racial adopted son of a couple of sheep and cattle farmers, faces his own set of problems. Every day he has to walk for 90 minutes to reach the school. Marianne makes a house call to Thomas’s farm when his mother, Christine, has a pulmonary infection. Christine, who has a history of miscarriages, is pregnant and has to be hospitalized for some time. As the reserved Thomas worries about his mother and the birth of a biological child to his parents, his grades in school begin to fail. Wanting to help, Marianne invites Thomas to come and stay with her family so he can visit his mother in town at the hospital and spend more time studying and avoid the long trip to school everyday. This coincides with a blissful return home for Nathan for leave between his tours of duty abroad. Nathan is lovingly welcome by his wife and son and takes upon himself, during his short visit, to personally invite Thomas to stay with his family. Pressed by his parents, Thomas reluctantly accepts.

Sharing the same household does not improve the relationship between the two teenagers. Damien resents that his mother is charmed by Thomas and accuses him of getting sick so he can be examined by Marianne. The two boys fight each other with their fists away from home in the mountains. Damien asks Thomas to take him by car to see a man whom he has contacted on-line for an encounter. Thomas reluctantly drives him there but Demien backs down unsure of his feelings. On their way back home, Demien confesses his feelings to Thomas: “I don’t know if I’m into guys or just you”. Thomas does not welcome the revelation. He stops the car and while trying to rebuff Demien, Thomas falls into a ditch and breaks an arm. Realizing that the two boys have continued fighting, Marianne asks Thomas to return to his farm the next day. Damian and Thomas get closer at school sitting in class together. Demien takes the first step kissing Thomas who initially seems to welcome the affection, but retaliates violently hitting Demien in the face. Thomas is expelled from school. Demien tells his mother that Thomas hit him because he kissed him, revealing his true feelings for Thomas and she is sympathetic.

Nathan is killed in a mission, shattering the lives of his wife and son. After the funeral, Thomas embraces Demien consoling him. As Marianne falls into a deep depression, Thomas moves back to live with them to help look after Marianne. He keeps her company while Demien is away at school. The relationship between the two boys warms up. They work together discussing a classroom project on desire. When Marianne finds the strength to go back to work, it is time for Thomas to return to his farm. Marianne goes to bed earlier that night. Damien tells Thomas that he loves him and that he is not afraid of his feelings. Thomas kisses him and they make love. The next morning Thomas leaves before Demien wakes up. Demien goes to Thomas' farm and they talk about the previous night and their feelings. Thomas is nervous after the birth of his sister and Marianne and Demien accompany him to the happy occasion. Marianne decides that it is better for her to take a job offer and move to Lyon. She tells her son that Thomas can come and visit but Demien has his doubts about it. Marianne then tells him that he has to have more confidence in himself and in life. Thomas happily goes down the slope to see Demien and they kiss.

Cast

Production

For his 21st feature film, director André Téchiné returned to the theme of adolescent life more than twenty years after his success with Wild Reeds (1994). The script was written by Téchiné in collaboration with Céline Sciamma, director of three coming-of-age films: Water Lilies (2007), Tomboy (2011) and Girlhood (2014). About their collaboration Téchiné explained: "I had a lot of admiration for what she’s brought to French film, the innovative side of her work on adolescence, and I knew that my film would revolve around two teenagers. Moreover, I wanted the film to contain as little dialogue as possible, for it to be as physical as possible as you have these characters that aren’t capable of putting their experience into words at all. In writing the screenplay, myself and Céline very much agreed on this, on creating something extremely minimalistic when it came to dialogue."

The film was produced by Fidélité Films. Shooting took place in around Bagnères-de-Luchon encompassing two different periods: a winter session, wrapped on 13 February 2015, and several weeks in the summer (from 25 June-31 July 2015). Téchiné choose to set the story in Southwest France in the Hautes-Pyrénées, with its mountainous landscapes, a region of the country rarely depicted in films. Téchiné commented: "I thought that would visually work very well. It also struck me that these mountains, with their evil charm and enchanting quality, seem to belong to a magical world like that of adolescence, which is lost when you enter the altogether more pragmatic adult world"

Reception

The film premiered in competition at the 66th Berlin International Film Festival. It garnered a widespread critical acclaim. It holds a positive rating of 93% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 28 reviews.

Stephen Holden in the New York Times described the film as "A touching drama about raging hormones, bullying and sexual awakening - and the strongest film in many years by the post-New Wave French director André Téchiné."

In Los Angeles Times Justin Chang commented:" Being 17 unfolds over the course of a year divided into three chapters, or “trimesters,” as they’re labeled on screen. It’s a reference to the term schedule of the French school system, but also to the new life developing in Christine’s womb — a fitting choice for a movie that plays, by the end, like the work of an artist newly born".

Film critic Glenn Kenny from RogerEbert.com quoted from the film :" Need is part of nature … desire is not of natural origin. It is superfluous. So goes a reading in one of Thomas and Damien’s school assignments. The project of Being 17, which is realized via the accretion of dozens of wonderful details, is to prove that assertion entirely wrong, to celebrate desire as the most natural and necessary thing in our lives".

Writing for The Hollywood Reporter, David Rooney called the film "quite extraordinary ... an ultra-naturalistic slice of rocky adolescent life that combines violence and sensuality, wrenching loss and tender discovery."