A group of teenagers are street-cast in their neighborhood and selected to play in a feature film during the summer.
Screened at the 2022 75th Cannes Film Festival, “The Worst Ones” utilizes a neorealist approach for its film within a film structure. Set in the Picasso projects of Boulogne-sur-Mer, a film crew led by Belgian director Gabriel (Johan Heldenbergh) navigate the trials and tribulations of making a feature starring juvenile, unprofessional actors. The young actors, led by Ryan (Timeo Mahaut, magnificent in his debut performance), Maylis, and Lily, all have their own offscreen issues, which outweigh their onscreen dramatizations.
Ryan and his older sister Melodie live in a cramped apartment due to his widowed, mentally ill mother being unable to care for him. Like any young boy, Ryan is prone to act out or misbehave. Like any typical teenager looking for connections and romance through questionable internet sites and pursuing older crushes, Lily is like any average teenager. Finally, Maylis is barely a teen but is enamored by the female production assistant who drives her to the film’s shoots. As the shoot continues, the process becomes more grueling for the young untrained actors, perhaps blurring the lines between fiction and reality.
This debut has a lot of ideas, but the short running time and multiple unfinished storylines feel more like a rough cut. Co-Directors/Co-Writers Lise Akoka and Romane Gueret have some excellent critiques on the exploitation of people and how we perceive others, and the age differences really tack on that message. I appreciate the filmmaking duo’s ambitions but overall, “The Worst Ones” is unfinished and fails to stick the landing.
“The Worst Ones” was an Official Selection of Un Certain Regard at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival
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