Underwhelming

Rating: 4/10 (7 August 2011)

Like most people, Malle had an uneventful childhood as he attended a boarding school in France. Unlike most people, Malle felt a need to make a movie about this rather dull period of his life. There is nothing very interesting about watching boys going through their daily routines at school. There is no plot, just random episodes that fail to sustain a narrative flow. There's an extended scene where the two main characters are separated from their troop while playing a game in the woods. It seems like it's building up to something dramatic, but it just fizzles out. The final scene is powerful, but does not warrant having to sit through the rest of this underwhelming drama.