This French film is a quite disheartening look at life in the public housing projects outside Paris. In a crumbling neighborhood with a majority of immigrants from Northern Africa, a high school tries to produce a play by Pierre Marivaux (1688-1763). The heart of the film is the budding romance between the vivacious blonde Lydia (one of the few "native" French living in the neighborhood) and the shy and painfully inarticulate Krimo, who is ridiculized by his thuggish friends for taking a part in the play. All the kids speak in an unintelligible slang, which makes a contrast with the classical French of Marivaux. I wrote it was disheartening (despite not being a drama) because it shows that the marginalized inhabitants of the projects have an almost nil chance of breaking into the mainstream of French society. Thoughtful and worth seeing.

hello;i'm not -at all- trying to imply any kind of criticism i'm just trying to share u my point of view concerning this movie i've seen yesterday. 1.high pitch dialogs: the long arguments governing a large portion of the movie seems as trying to focus on the real, on earth dialogs taking place between the french & NA immigrants, and maybe other nationalities in France as well. this dialogs seems to be RATHER unprofitable and unheard by both parties, taking an aggressive form in some occasions; this argument is not only found between french-immigrants but also in between immigrants-immigrants themselves; this will lead to the second issue, 2.the theme of POWER: it is so vivid when focusing on the relations between characters of the movie: Lydia-Krimo, Fathi-all other characters, police(government)-all others.* there is one question i would like to raise: Lydia; i can't stop questioning her background? the structure of her character is will built but i guess there is something missing?.

"Games of Love and Chance (L'Esquive)" is an involving experiment in giving classic French comedy of errors relevance to today, in a dramatic demonstration of "Plus ça change, plus c'est la meme chose" -- the more things change, the more they stay the same.Writer/director Abdellatif Kechiche juxtaposes the titular 18th century work by Marivaux with junior high kids in a poor, inner city Arab immigrant neighborhood, for an effect that crosses Larry Clark's "Kids" with "Mad Hot Ballroom." Like any period farce, the real relationships are dizzyingly circular: A loves B who loves C who is in disguise with D. A threatens C, B changes places with D to pursue his suit and use Marivaux like Cyrano, C can't make up her mind, friends of B and C misunderstand everyone, and the course of true love doesn't run smooth. While marred by wincingly heavy-handed intellectualizing on class social criticism by the literature teacher who is directing the kids in the play and a deus ex machina insertion of biased cops, the frank life and death-ness of adolescent romance strongly comes through in comparison to Marivaux's mannered floweriness, even as these kids communicate amongst each other with four letter obscenities, bluntly crude slang (that may not be too well represented in the English subtitles but I'm sure French subtitlers likewise have trouble with the patois in movies such as "Four Brothers"), heart-tugging looks of longing, painfully hurt tears, and, finally in frustration, physical action.It is not clear if "the blonde" as she is referred to in the English subtitles (played by the excellent Sara Forestier, who seems to have been the only member of the cast with some previous experience before the cameras) is also from an immigrant family or Muslim, or if she just picked up use of a couple of Muslim catch phrases in her slang as to whether Kechiche is adding another layer of social commentary. Or she could just be part of the trend in French cinema to fixate on pouty young blonde temptresses, viz. "La Petite Lili," "À Tout de Suite (Right Now)," "Lila Says (Lila dit ça)." This film has a lot of parallels with "Lila Says (Lila dit ça)," not just about sex and social setting, though it dealt with older kids, but also how literature can be an escapist outlet yet also a threat that brings hidden emotions to the fore. The grim mise en scene makes wonderful use of a crowded, high rise neighborhood where the kids hang out chilled because they have little privacy at home, some fathers are in jail, their loving mothers try to keep tabs on them, and cell phones are their expensive lifelines.While the film goes on a bit too long as scenes meander, probably because it isn't clear how much has been scripted and how much the kids are very effectively improvising particulars around a basic story line, their relationships are enthralling, both the romances and the friendships. Each teen actor creates an indelible and different character.270 years since Marivaux and the human heart hasn't changed.

I think this film deserve theirs Césars for a lot of reasons. The actors are excellent, especially Sara Forestier who's not from suburbs and has learned all words of this 'particular' vocabulary. The screenplay is very well, finally that's a play in a play ("le Jeu De l'Amour Et Du Hasard" written by Marivaux). This film shows almost the reality, is sometimes funny. The french teacher is disgusting, she is exactly what the director wants to fight : a society were there is no hope for an inhabitant of suburbs. As to her, Kremo is an idiot because he will never be Arlequin, he 'll never be in love and he doesn't even know how to play it. The film shows how wrong it is... The low point of the film is the sound, very bad, I think they wanted to be more realistic but that could be better, and realistic. This film is well to see, everyone can learn something.Even for french the language is hard to understand(sometimes we would have wanted subtitles!). I don't think the foreigners (particularly the ones who watch only blockbusters) will enjoy, or/and understand. But this freshly film is worth to be seen with attention.