Peppermint Soda

Plot

In the year 1963, thirteen-year-old Anne and fifteen-year-old Frederique are two Jewish sisters whose parents are separated. They live in Paris with their mother and spend their summer holidays at the beach with their father, around whom they both feel awkward. They attend a strict school.

Anne, who is on the threshold of adolescence, is anti-social (or at least asocial) and not much of an achiever. She tries to find out what is going on around her by eavesdropping on her mother and her sister. Her school grades are poor and indeed substandard, and she has to deal with unfair teachers; on one occasion she is caught plagiarising an essay her sister had written a year before. She also has her first period and is learning to talk to boys, and to sort things out with her mother after getting in trouble.

By contrast, Frederique is much more outgoing, and she is starting to become politically involved, especially in the Algerian question and banning the bomb. She has a crush on someone much older than herself, and is beginning to feel the first serious pangs of love. She also experiences her first friend who runs away, and her first loss of friendship over values.

Cast