No longer very young, a director is shooting his first feature and goes to a school in the Picasso district, in the suburbs of Boulogne-sur-mer, to cast some young actors for his movie, which focuses on young people living in a disadvantaged environment.
The inhabitants of the area oppose the production, convinced that it portrays a reality worse than the actual one, and they do not understand why the worst elements of the neighbourhood were chosen as boys. The director goes on, while the lives of his young actors intertwine with the crew and blend with the plot.
Les Pires (aka The Worst One) is the first feature by the directors Lise Akoka and Romane Gueretwas. The idea was born from an experience that the two young filmmakers lived on the film set on which they met, Le Nouveau. They worked in the casting department and selected two children, in their opinion fantastic, unfortunately not chosen for the film. This was the sparkle for Chasse Royal, a short film that premiered in Cannes and was César-nominated. This short movie served as the basis for this feature.
Les Pires owes a lot to Francois Truffaut
Intertwining cinema on cinema as told in La Nuit Americaine with the extraordinary sensitivity that the great French master had towards the condition of youth. There are many elements from The Four Hundred Blows and Stolen Kisses interpreted from different points of view.
First of all, the cynical and manipulative one of the director. He’s constantly on the verge of a mental breakdown, torn by the dilemma of whether these guys are people or tools for him, helpful in reaching a goal in life.
On the other hand, there is the crew members’ humanity, aware that the fiction in which these young people are involved can be the beginning of a path to a better life.
Les Pires is a film that walks a fragile thread, always in the balance between patheticism and exploitation. But if the latter is openly declared and effectively neutralized, the first element is never used to provoke cheap emotions. On the contrary, as always happens, the children look at us and judge us.
The movie is shot with great dryness, edited with wisdom and rhythm, thanks to an upstream writing work that blends improvisation with a screenplay conceived with intelligence. Les Pires has most of its strengths in its interpretations.
In the role of the director we find Johan Heldenbergh, already poignant protagonist of the unforgettable The Broken Circle Breakdown and also very good here.
The young performers are all fantastic, but it’s impossible not to be enraptured by Mallory Wanecque‘s magnetism and disruptive youth. Fifteen years old, from Valenciennes, Lily is a character that enters your heart, between the life that has already made her hard and the pure romance that only a teenager in her first love struggle can experience.
She will become the new Isabelle Adjani.