A coming-of-age tale set at a boys' boarding school in Southern France during the early 1960s, "The Wild Reeds" offers nothing new to a genre that has been, to say the least, overworked.
That is, unless the novelty of its setting is appealing, played out as it is against the backdrop of the French-Algerian War (which, we are told, divided France just as America became fractured over the Vietnam War).
A melodrama focusing primarily on three confused young men in the school, as well as the daughter of one of their teachers, the mix of multiple subplots hones in on youth-ful choices regarding sex and politics, and their effect on the maturation process of these youngsters.
The nominal central figure is Francois (Gael Morel), a model student who gradually discovers that he is gay and becomes fixated on the wild James Dean-like Serge (Stephane Rideau).
Meanwhile, a new student, the militant Algerian-born French National Henri (Frederic Gorny), becomes a disruptive influence on Francois. He also eventually affects the lives of both Serge and Francois' best friend Maite (Elodie Bouchez), the teacher's daughter, who, having been raised by an active Communist, is as militant — in the opposite direction — as Henri.
Structured with a rambling, episodic style that doesn't really suit the material, the film is loaded with big "moments" — a teacher has a breakdown in front of her class when a former student is killed in the war, teenagers come to terms with their heterosexual and homosexual tendencies, an activist burns Communist posters and threatens to similarly destroy the local Communist headquarters, and there is an awful lot of dialogue, primarily made up of platitudes — which can be problematic in a movie that has subtitles.
In the end, the film reaches for much but takes hold of little, and the actors go wild in the big moments while being so understated the rest of the way that brooding seems to be the requisite substitute for performances.
"The Wild Reeds" is not rated but would get an R for violence, sex, nudity, profanity and vulgarity.