Because of a Boy

2002
6.9| 1h26m| NA| en| More Info
Released: 13 March 2002 Released
Producted By:
Country: France
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
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When Vincent finds himself a victim of outing in his high school, he must accept to live with the drastic changes it provokes, and redefine his relationships with his friends and family.

Genre

Drama

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Director

Fabrice Cazeneuve

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Because of a Boy Audience Reviews

Lawbolisted Powerful
Actuakers One of my all time favorites.
Intcatinfo A Masterpiece!
Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable
Armand About the love in the nuances of a teenager's life. About rules and shadows of a gesture, about the holes of public image, about victory and the freedom. Complicated and subtle, delicate and naive. Slice of a coming up in the silk of happy-end. Not a movie about gay condition but about choices, expectation and the inside solution. About a boy and his fragile world. About the small gestures as circle of stones.A drama, an answer or a Chopin fragment. Every definition is OK. It is not spectacular and not river of solutions. May be a confession. But every eye, every mind discovers another thing. So, only a film. French, like a summer morning. Madlene, piece of loisir, strange subject. Or only section in a life way. Ordinary world and the end like part of very old story.
joelglevi Well, we've seen this same story how many times now? But this film is a sensitive and realistic retelling. Well-written, -acted, and -executed. I was moved, and what's more important than that? Some minor drawbacks: (1) the soundtrack is an atrocious, Casio-quality distraction better suited for porn; (2) speaking of porn, I have no objection to nudity, but it seems strange that all the sex scenes are heterosexual in a gay-themed film, and (3) the subtitles are terrible. Even with my limited French, it was clear that a lot of meaning is lost in the translation. And, for an American the very British-English subtitles are jarring in a film about teens (lots of "fancy that, chap"). Do English teens talk like that? I noticed a lot of French slang, but the translation is stilted and, well, British. Worth a rental.
Roland E. Zwick A sensitive film about both "coming out" and "coming of age," "You'll Get Over It" tells of a 17-year-old French boy's efforts to deal with his homosexuality. A championship swimmer, Vincent is a popular, well-liked kid at school and the apple of his parents' eyes at home. The problem is that Vincent is living a lie, keeping his sexuality a secret from his family, his two best friends, and the world at large. When Vincent is seen "consorting" with a suspected gay student, all hell breaks loose and Vincent is forced to deal with not only the reactions of those around him but the roiling emotions taking place deep within himself about what exactly it means to be gay.Although the film feels a little too pat, contrived and melodramatic at times - kind of like an After School Special with subtitles and occasional flashes of nudity - "You'll Get Over It" wins us over with the delicacy, insight and compassion it brings to its subject. It shows us the myriad and sometimes surprising reactions from the people in Vincent's life - his parents, his "girlfriend," his best friend, his team mates, his swim coach and his teachers. The amount of outright persecution Vincent has to endure from his fellow students shows that even France - so often thought of as being in the forefront of all things sexual - has a long way to go in accepting gays. The movie also deals with Vincent's own conflicting feelings about being gay, as he contemplates a future filled with what he imagines to be loneliness and unhappiness. Like many gay people, Vincent lives in as much of a state of denial at times as the people around him.The performances are excellent, particularly those by Julien Baumgartner as Vincent and Julia Maravel as Noemie, the girl who loves him and wants to help him, but who finds it hard to let go of him even after she discovers the truth. Baumgartner has a very expressive face that allows us to understand and identify with the external and internal struggles taking place in his character's life.For the most part, "You'll Get Over It" has a nice, naturalistic feel to it. Director Fabrice Cazeneuve keeps his camera largely hand-held and close to the actors, which heightens the sense of realism and intimacy this type of story needs to be effective. Unfortunately, the plot mechanics do intrude a bit from time to time, and the ending, while touching, does feel a little too conveniently upbeat to be entirely convincing. Still, "You'll Get Over It" serves as a valuable plea for understanding and acceptance, and that is a salutary goal for any film.
dutchtom1 Although I enjoyed watching this movie at first, on second thought I noticed quite a few inconsistencies. The story is about a gay teenager who is outed in school, and how his life is made quite impossible because of this. The young protagonist, Vincent, finds himself ousted from his 'straight' peers, and neither does he feel at home in the 'gay' scene of Paris. The screenplay writer has done a good job at showing how even in modern Western societies, where laws are more and more granting equal rights to gay people, real life is still a far cry from egalitarian. Homosexuality is accepted, as long as you wait till you finish school, and don't demonstrate romantic displays of kissing in public, except in gay ghetthoes like the Parisian Marais. Whereas the screenplay-writer has tried to make this point, the director of the film then goes on to make exactly the mistake of treating straight erotic scenes and romantic storylines, differently to the gay ones. There are many and long 'sex' scenes between Vincent and his girl-friend, whom we constantly see nude on the bed, but very few and not very explicit gay 'sex' scenes. If we have to see Vincent give oral sex to his girlfriend, why can we not see the same between him and another guy? When Vincent meets up with his sex-buddy, we see a few quick kisses, which are immediately followed by him leaving the shower. The 'romantic love story between Vincent and the Jeremy Elkaim character is also rather sparsely portrayed. More focus is given to the the demise of the relation between Vincent and his 'girlfriend', rather than the blossoming of love between the two guys, which has been the catalyst for his outing in the first place. *spoiler*The final scene is supposed to tell us that Vincent has finally reached 'freedom'. Vincent and his new boyfriend are seen running in the park, in love, but when they tumble down on the grass, just before they 'french' kiss each other properly, the camera moves away, and the end credits appear.Why have the gay erotic scenes and the gay romantic storyline not been portrayed equally to the straight ones? It smacks of internalized homophobia of the director. A movie that's supposed to be about the liberation and equality of gays, should then not demonstrate exactly the opposite visually, or should I say by lack of showing it!A pity, I think the screenplay deserved a better directorial execution.Some questions that are left unanswered:If Vincent has to train for a sports scholarship by himself because his swim mates cannot stand to be with a 'gay' in the same pool, then how will Vincent deal with this problem when he goes to University, where he no doubt will encounter the same discrimination? Unless he keeps himself in the closet there again.The excuse given to why Jeremy Elkaim's character did not kiss Vincent at first, is rather odd. Why could their relationship not develop properly?In the end I even start to believe that this is a gay movie for a straight public, and the director wants to spare that audience too much explicit gay material. A decision which is quite offensive towards gay people.