A superb film from Téchiné. The small town of Villeneuve-sur-Lot is filmed beautifully, the characters are well-drawn, the story moves along believably (not always the case with this director). Gael Morel as François is fresh, ardent and appealing; his love for Serge will not be returned, to his chagrin. Élodie Bouchez impresses us as Maité, who has grown up without a father; in a sense, the Communist Party has become her father. The one sinister character is Mariani the pied-noir: his bigoted notions of life have been formed by his parents and the OAS, he has no real philosophy just an internalized sense of rage at the unfairness of life.There are wonderful scenes. Mme Alvarez, the teacher at the lycée, might help Serge's older brother to desert from the army so he won't have to go back to fight in Algeria, but refuses to do so out of professional pride. Later she hears of the young man's death in combat and falls into a profound depression. The sleep cure is prescribed for her, it's a cure worse than the disease. Mariani has a chance to pass his bac if he works hard (he has already failed it) but working with the teacher Morelli (a pied-noir himself) is forcing him to confront his mental strait-jacket. Since he would rather be wrong in solidarity with his parents than right with these progressive Frenchmen he despises, he abandons his studies. The student-teacher confrontations are sour and hopeless.

Dull, uninspiring tale of young love from a reputed master of French cinema. Andre Techine's film fails on many levels, unable as it is to grab our attention, hold our interest or endear us to its participants."Wild Reeds" has a very weak link, and that is its script. From director Techine, Gilles Taurand and Olivier Massart, it misses the mark on both plot and character development. The story, concerning a young boy's love for a fellow student who has lost his brother in the Algiers war, and a young girl's confusion about life and love which is compounded by her mother's nervous breakdown, never manages to captivate or even slightly interests us. Coupled with this is the scripters failure to present characters we can care about. Ensuring the film's complete destruction is the awful, pointed dialogue that is totally embarrassing and never works.In this light "Wild Reeds" did not stand a chance, and any attempts by the young cast to salvage the film are doomed. Having said this, Gael Morel, Elodie Bouchez, Frederic Corny and Stephane Rideau all try hard to reach us from their confused, youthful worlds. Alas none of them can.Cinematography from Jeanne Lapoirie is fetching.Monday, August 4, 1997 - Hoyts Croydon

I absolutely adore this movie. When I first saw it, I loved it because I could identify with the lead gay character, but I have seen it since then, and i love it now for its portrayal of the complexity of adolescence life. This is by no means part of the American teen melodrama genre. It deals with everything from homosexuality to mental illness to war to racism to feminism to communism. It has a deep political, psychological, and emotional message. I urge you to see this movie.

This is Techine's masterpiece and it is doubtful whether he will ever top it. It is a flawless, poetic film (no chain-smoking brain surgeons here, as in 'My Favorite Season'), and the only one in existence that deals (among many other themes)with budding homosexuality in an adolescent with such class and empathy. My favorite scene is when Techine refuses to offer any dialogue and lets the scene hang when Mrs.Alvarez meets the wife of Prof.Morelli who's been sitting in the car during Morelli's lunch with her (Mrs.Alvarez). I will not explain any further, you will have to see for yourself; great films are meant to seen and reseen as many times as it takes to erase the memory of mediocre ones.