2018 French comedy-drama film
| Bad Seeds
|
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 Film poster
|
|
| French
| Mauvaises herbes
|
|---|
|
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| Directed by
| Kheiron
|
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| Written by
| Kheiron
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| Produced by
| Simon Istolainen
|
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| Starring
| Kheiron
Catherine Deneuve
Andre Dussollier
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| Cinematography
| Jean-Paul Agostini
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| Edited by
| Anny Danche
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| Distributed by
| Mars Films
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Release date
|
- 21 November 2018
(
2018-11-21
)
(France)
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|---|
Running time
| 105 minutes
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| Country
| France
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|---|
| Language
| French
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|---|
Bad Seeds
(
French
:
Mauvaises herbes
) is a 2018 French comedy-drama film written and directed by
Kheiron
who also plays the lead role, with
Catherine Deneuve
and
Andre Dussollier
in starring roles. It was released on 21 November 2018 in cinemas in France, and on 21 December 2018 on Netflix.
[1]
The film centers around Wael, a con man whose life is changed when he is forced to work as a mentor for a group of teenagers who face expulsion from school.
[2]
Plot
[
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]
Wael (Kheiron) is a petty criminal who lives with his foster mother Monique (Catherine Deneuve) in a Paris suburb. They get food by conning older grocery shoppers out of their purchases outside a supermarket. One day, when they try to rob Victor (Andre Dussollier), he recognises Monique as an old friend he had not seen for 30 years. He doesn't press charges in exchange for Wael and Monique working for him on a volunteer basis, Wael as a mentor for troubled teenagers who have been expelled, and Monique as Victor's secretary at the youth club he runs.
Throughout the film, Wael's background is presented in flashbacks to his childhood in Lebanon in a Muslim village. The entire population of the village, including Wael's family, was massacred by Christian and Jewish soldiers when he was very small. He survived by pretending to be blind and picking pockets in a nearby city. It’s in this city where he witnesses two thugs rob and murder a young couple. Believing Wael is blind, they leave him alone. He is found and brought into a Christian orphanage by a nun: a young Monique. These thugs later see Wael in the marketplace with Monique and realize he is not blind. They break into the orphanage looking to kill Wael who runs away. He is again found by Monique and they escape to France where Monique raises Wael as her own child.
Wael connects with the recalcitrant teenagers, but they only agree to return to the youth club when he offers them €10 per day. There are six students in the group: the intelligent and arrogant Nadia, Shana who admires Nadia with little will of her own, Karim and Ludo who are from neighbouring areas at war with each other, the
Romany
boy Jimmy who can't read or write and doesn't speak much French, and Fabrice who seems generally disaffected with life. Over the following week, Wael gains their confidence, sometimes by exaggerating his own abilities, or pretending that he has invented important things or coined well-known sayings.
The group bonds and together teach Jimmy to read and Nadia to communicate with more humility. Shana confides in Wael her father has sexually abused her, and he convinces her to tell her mother. Meanwhile, Ludo is being harassed by Franck, an unscrupulous police officer who threatens to tell social services that Ludo's siblings should be placed in foster care unless he agrees to sell drugs for him.
Wael appears to believe that Franck is Ludo's youth worker and tells him the €10 bills he gives to the kids every day are counterfeit. He claims that he regularly buys small sums in counterfeit money to use for minor transactions. Franck asks Wael to provide him with a very large sum in counterfeit bills. Wael reluctantly tells Franck that he will do it and they meet on a rooftop. In a flashback, it is revealed that Karim told Wael about Ludo's trouble with Franck and Wael contacted the police. When Franck realizes has been betrayed, he beats up Wael. The police arrive and arrest Franck before he can shoot Wael.
Wael survives and, in the final scene of the film, the students give him a book of quotations, showing they knew all along he had been pretending to be more than he was. By now they are all returning to the club of their own free will, without being paid for it.
Cast
[
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]
- Kheiron
as Wael
- Catherine Deneuve
as Monique
- Andre Dussollier
as Victor
- Louison Blivet as Shana
- Adil Dehbi as Fabrice
- Hakou Benosmane as Karim
- Youssouf Wague as Ludo
- Ouassima Zrouki as Nadia
- Joseph Jovanovic as Jimmy
- Alban Lenoir
as Franck
- Ingrid Donnadieu as young Monique
- Leila Boumedjane as Sarah
- Aymen Wardane as little boy Wael
- Elyazid Riha as Joseph
- Fianso as Usamah
- Medine as Djallil
Reception
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]
Bad Seeds
received mixed reviews in the press. Fabrice Leclerc who reviewed the movie for
Paris Match
praised Kheiron's acting skills,
[3]
while Christophe Carriere in
L'Express
called him "n'est pas seulement drole [...] aussi pertinent" ("not only funny but also relevant").
[4]
Other reviewers commented on the overly facile way in which conflicts were resolved or overlooked, which Nathalie Simon in
Le Figaro
called "naive"
[5]
while Scott Tobias in
New York Times
said that the message "...arrives one corny aphorism at a time".
[2]
Eddie Strait in the
Daily Dot
, while admitting that the script contained many cliches, thought that the actors made up for it and argued that "...
Bad Seeds
hits the mark often enough to warrant watching."
[1]
References
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External links
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]