French cinema will give you crime movies en français (Melville, Audiard), horror (Ducournau) and physical comedy (Tati), but what about the mainstream American staple of the summer-camp movie? Following up their Un Certain Regard-winning The Worst Ones [+lee también:
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Gueret and Akoka’s sincere desire to create a “feelgood movie” – with some nutrition, and not just sugar – is commendable. The stakes pre-bus ride to the Drôme department are set, as we’re introduced to our focal characters Shaï (who’s Jewish and played by Shirel Nataf) and Djeneba (who’s of West African descent and played by Fanta Kebe), both youth workers still growing in their experience and professionalism. They’re our lenses through which to understand today’s young French teenagers on one of their first excursions free of parents, and are also hopefully relatable protagonists as adults, undergoing existential stress about their present and future. Together in their close friendship, and amongst the senior counsellors (led by French pop star and reality competition winner Amel Bent), they forge a necessary surrogate family, with Shaï’s horrible brother disapproving of her Muslim boyfriend Ismaël, and Djeneba’s infant daughter supervised by her own unreliable and neglectful mother.

We get a spike of glee and energy seeing just how independent and informed the kids in their charge are, as they settle in their bunks across the idyllic woodland site. The film’s English-language translation is sharp so as to reflect the counsellors’ own youth speak, as the younger campers (who already seem very informed on matters of the birds and the bees) dare each other to eat both “poop” and Mon Chéri chocolates.

Beyond kayaking, singalongs (including the classic “Mon enfance” by Barbara) and downtime where the counsellors gratefully blow off steam, there’s an educational interlude where the group visits a museum dedicated to the wartime occupation and the French resistance, concluding with a talk from a Holocaust survivor. Whilst the film sets up a sub-theme of Jewish identity from its first act, this sudden detour into seriousness is undeniably well-meaning, but still feels jarring and tonally uncertain.

Creditably, this segment of the movie connects to its wider social agenda – namely, that of celebrating contemporary France’s diversity and multiculturalism – suggesting that perhaps the younger generation can redeem the country’s divisive politics once they come of age. But whilst laudable, this does hurt the realism of what we’re observing, the dramaturgy being a bit blithe and carefree, as we recall how Laura Wandel’s Playground [+lee también:
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Summer Beats is a French production staged by Superstructure, in co-production with France 3 Cinéma, StudioCanal (which is also handling international sales) and Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Cinéma.