L’âge des possibles

The Age of Potential is the story of a couple of youngsters in the Council of Europe's Strasbourg who hope to get creative jobs in the future but survive for the time being off low-skilled so called ''Mac Jobs''. They have visions, and a few illusions, and are not afraid of philosophizing about them. In true slacker-style, we are presented with a theory of why ''super'' sized sanitary towels are more use to society than ''normal'' sized ones. Unbeatable! The girl behind the sanitary towel idea is the hacker Agnes. She is tired of her uneventful life and arranges a date, in a dark hotel room, with a man she has spoken to a few times on the Net. She is attracted to him but they have never met. She is young and full of opportunities, so why not take a chance. Agnes' friend Beatrice works in a hamburger restaurant. Despite having been rejected and deserted several times by previous love affairs, she falls head-over-heels for the quiet Gerard. Now is the time to get rid of the odour of French fries and the ketchup stains. The film also includes an eternal triangle drama between Catherine, her boyfriend Ivan and Denise as third party, who in the absence of work as an actress works as a market researcher for a company which produces olive oil. The relationship between Catherine and Ivan is cracking at the seams and in his desire for independence and liberality, Ivan finds Denise who represents everything optimistic and beautiful in his life. All of the individuals in the film are soon bound together in a complicated mess of recently begun and recently broken-off relationships. Conflicts and embarrassing revelations create a ball of emotional threads with split ends. Director Pascal Ferran is himself young, which may explain why this film feels so honest and relaxed compared to other films about young people. The Age of Potential is one of many successful French films of the 90s about young people. But it differs from, say, The Good All Daze, Bye Bye and Hate by not being a political film with the aim of relating the opinions and situation of a whole generation, but rather a simple story about relationships between a few young people. The script includes both snappy dialogue about superficialities and meditations on existence and true love. LB

Premiärstatus
Skandinavisk premiär: Medverkande
Anne Cantineau, Christèle Tual, Anne Caillère: Producent
Marie Balducchi: Manus
Virginie Duployez, Annette Kurz, Giulio Lichtner: Foto
Jean-Marc Fabre: Musik
Béatrice Thiriet: Talat språk
French