“The worst ones“ in Les pires refer to a group of delinquent kids in an area of northern France. Speaking about them, one character calls them “hoodlums”. It isn’t exactly accurate but it is also hard to argue against the description. But by the time Lise Akoka and Romane Gueret’s film opens, they are not merely a nuisance: a film crew, led by a director named Gabriel, has found them useful in their search for verisimilitude in location and actors.
So, there is an audition and some of the worst ones get chosen. The story then follows the shooting process and the ways cast and crew are affected by the project.
Ryan, one of the kids, lives with his sister and becomes one of the main pillars of the narrative. He is played by Timéo Mahaut who, based on his extremely intelligent performance here, should have an acting career ahead of him. The rest of the actors are just as superb, including Mallory Wanecque as Lily, the story’s other pillar.
There’s also a kid named Jessy who is required to film a love scene with Lily. That scene catalyses a strong negative reaction both within the scene and, later, outside of it. Jessy gets mad when he thinks a crew member is looking at him nearly naked, but his volatility may just be one of discomfort at having to film a love scene while he’s still not as experienced as his loudmouth antics suggest. Lily, whose reputation was never stellar among her peers, suffers taunts when she’s seen drinking with the director. Gabriel himself gets told off when he visits the kids.
This film within a film format gets first time feature directors Akoka and Gueret, whose film bowed in Un Certain Regard in Cannes, a chance to critique their industry. In the aforementioned scene, what is being examined is the delicacy of working with unformed personalities by adults trying to impose their own experience. A variation of the same dynamic occurs earlier in a scene featuring a fight. So, here is a film that has sex and violence as its motor, but neither of them are obtained in the manipulative way Gabriel deploys.
And yet, in both cases, we see the difficulty of getting decent performances out of young actors and the borderline unethical methods a director deploys. It is two female directors showing a male director at work—would it be different if Gabriel was Gabrielle? Who knows. It seems important to the filmmakers, who along with Elenore Gurrey, are also responsible for the screenplay, to neither praise nor punish.
This subtracts the propulsive kind of suspense from the plot. But in its place is something warm, a bit like heart. Festival audiences, particularly in Europe, should lap it up, buoyed by its premiere in Cannes where it won the main award in Un Certain Regard. Everybody else might want to wait for Akoka and Gueret’s next project. The Worst Ones is a solid, if sometimes cold, debut. Maybe there’ll be fire next time.
Directors: Lise Akoka, Romane Gueret
Screenplay: Lise Akoka, Romane Gueret, Éleonore Gurrey
Cinematography: Eric Dumont
Editing: Albertine Lastera
Casting : Marlère Serour
Producers: Marine Alaric, Frédéric Jouve
Production Company: Les Films Velvet
Venue: Cannes Film Festival (Un Certain Regard)
World Sales: Pyramide International
In French
99 minutes
