The movie was told from the point of view of the teenage girls who all get pregnant all around the same time (Camille is the first, and it focuses on her). If in the end the girls said "Wow were we dumb!" It wouldn't work. Thats not the mindset of the girls. And it purposely ended like that to show that without Camille, their dream of creating a community quickly slipped away.The movie wasn't meant to show how illogical the girls were. It was to just show, from the girls perspective, why they wanted to do it. And the fact that they never really grasped what that meant for the rest of their lives adds to why they all made this pregnancy pact. I think this was refreshing, because in other film adaptations of what happened (Yes, this is a real event), they try to show how the girls were wrong in the end. But I think this movie offered both sides, and left you to decide if their decision was right or wrong. I think this movie could have gone a little more in-depth with their characters, like Camille, or maybe Clem, but overall I think it was a good representation of mob-mentality and rebellion among teenagers.

Usually I like French movies, and so it is with some disappointment when I write this quick thrashing of "17 Girls" directed by sisters Delphine and Muriel Coulin. The storyline and cinematography are standard fare, with some montage grunge/rock music cuts I didn't care for, but the real problem lies with the intended message. Girls in groups, and in general mob mentalities for people, always seems to bring out the depths of stupidity and utter dumbness. So the directors instead of focusing on the pitfalls and problems of what happened show it as an exciting life- shattering bonding event. Indeed they even throw in the last lines of the movie with something to the effect of the girls took power into their own hands to "dream". This is sad and reprehensible drivel. Poverty and over-population are real problems. This sort of thing is exactly why I've heard people bring up the idea of licensed partenthood. Pregnancy is not some game, and it certainly not some feminist statement. How low directors can stoop ...

Sometimes I just do not want to live on this planet anymore. A "poetic" movie about girls who want to become mass pregnant, because they are kinda bored? And that did actually happen somewhere? Having a kid in adolescence is probably the totally worst rebellion you can possibly do. It is actually just a "f*k you" shout at your very own parents, then you will return to them and beg for help. You will have no bloody idea what to do and will not be able to survive without their help. You will became even more dependent on them. You will waste your life and theirs as well. There is nothing poetic or charming on such rebellion.It is just a pure explosion of idiocy, that will very probably lead to wasted life. Young marriage will rarely work and hardly anybody will have interest in 22 years old single mothers with 6 years old kids. Usually the less successful, the old, the divorced, the outsiders, amazing choices here. I have seen this multiple times. You have passed education for parenthood and this leads to inevitable career choices. Poorly paid bartenders, cashiers and such. Then you are in early 30ies, fighting your own teenage rebel at home. Your life is full of badly masked self hate and hate to men. It's easy to spot these people, just walk into bar at late hour and you will meet some of them. I'm really disgusted by this sort of young stupid and feel no pity to them.I'm so angry by such "poetic" movies that show this bored spoiled youngsters as a "dreamers". Yes, in some sense even the Mason's family were "dreamers". That makes them no less disgusting. "Nothing can stop 17 years old girl that dreams." Oh yes, something can. Your kids, baby. The game is over now, the dream is over. This "rebellion" will make a lifetime slave from you, because you were so so so incredibly stupid. And making advertisements for such decisions is no less stupid.

There's something irrefutably Gallic about this arresting rite-of- passage movie. When social maypole Camille falls pregnant at her French high school, her friends and other hangers-on take it upon themselves to get pregnant too. The film focuses on the girls and the dynamics of their relationships in this novel situation. What's so French about it though is that no-one seems to be able to get to the bottom of why this has come to pass. Despite plenty of dialogue bouncing off the topic the only real causal suggestion comes in the repeated - and silent - sequences of shots which observe the girls' bodies and frame the girls in their provincial bedrooms, staring into space, bored or dreaming. It's like Sofia Coppola's Virgin Suicides, with all the generational disconnect, and birth substituted for death.Dreaming is the key, a word which appears in the poetic pay-off voice-over line at the close. With little on offer in the town, the girls look to create their future for themselves in this radical way. As it is with young people in this country, there is little thought given to the practical ramifications of the birth, the '18 years of sacrifice' that Camille's mother refers to, berating her headstrong daughter. Instead the girls cling do their legal research - how to wrest themselves from parental control and the state's financial obligations - and cling to one another for the rest.It's a well-observed, often touching film in which the Coulin sisters manage a consistent tension. It's the tension of the vacuum around young people making demands for money, which come with too few or too heavy a burden of responsibility attached. I enjoyed the inclusion of Camille's brother, a soldier whose dreams are mortgaged to the state that has sent him to war. In a dreadful, subtle scene we see photos of his mascot teddy, a childish toy, propped up against the guns as if firing them.An absorbing, realist film that would stand up well in a double feature against the melodrama of Romain Gavras' Our Day Will Come (2010). 6/10