Nos futurs (2015)
Directed by Rémi Bezançon

Film Review

Nos futurs, director Rémi Bezançon's fifth feature in ten years, is yet another in the spate of recent films to play the nostalgia card and convince us that we never had it so good in the 1980s.  It's a similar tongue-in-cheek comedy to the unexpected hit that Bezançon served up in 2008, Le Premier jour du reste de ta vie, except that this one is concerned with the flimsy ties of high school friendship rather than the more solid shackles of family life.  Somewhat flimsier than the director's previous work, Nos futurs relies heavily on the chemistry between the two lead actors, Pierre Rochefort (son of illustrious actors Jean Rochefort and Nicole Garcia) and Bezançon regular Pio Marmaï, and in this at least the film is on to a reasonable winner.

Rochefort and Marmaï make a perfect chalk-and-cheese pairing, the former stiff and conventional, the latter as wild and unpredictable as an over-aged disk jockey high on some unmentionable narcotic.  Prematurely aged by adult responsibilities, Rochefort's Yann pines for the carefree freedom of adolescence, whilst Marmaï's Thomas wouldn't recognise an adult responsibility if he were to run into in on his souped up scooter, so well-preserved is he in the aspic of arrested development.  Nos futurs is a canny variation on the coming-of-age theme, in which two thirty-year-old adolescents finally manage to put their childhood behind them, although the film's sly title (an allusion to the punk slogan No Future, deriving from the Sex Pistol's song God Save the Queen) doesn't exactly bode well for a happy ending.

Whilst it struggles to gel into a coherent whole and has a habit of tripping over some liberally planted clichés, Nos futurs is an amiable enough voyage-of-discovery romp which is kept on the road by its central performances and Bezançon's observational flair.  Starting in a somewhat flippant vein, with gags that are as likely to fail as hit their mark, the film acquires a deeper meaning as it progresses and by the time it is into its final act it is on more melancholic and grown-up territory.  But just when it starts to become emotionally involving and appears to have something profound to say, it careers off down an easy avenue towards an ending that is both forced and facile.  With inspiration in shorter supply than usual, Bezançon doesn't quite repeat the winning formula of Le Premier jour du reste de ta vie, but Rochefort and Marmaï's authentic buddy interplay makes for some entertaining viewing.

Film Synopsis

Thirty-something Yann is making a decent living for himself as an insurance broker and appears settled in a comfortable long-term relationship with his devoted partner Estelle.  He should be a happy man, but he is not.  In fact he is bored to distraction.  One day, he comes across a box of photographs of his last years at school and experiences a pang of nostalgia on seeing the face of his once best friend, Thomas, whom he hasn't seen since.  On the spur of the moment, Yann decides to look up Thomas, and is surprised to find that he hasn't changed a bit.  Adulthood appears to have completely passed Thomas by and he lives as wild and free a life as he did when he was a teenager.  As the two men revel in their shared memories of the time when they were happiest, they set about organising a party to which they will invite all of their old friends...