17 Girls
17 Girls (French: 17 filles) is a 2011 French comedy-drama film about 17 teenage girls who make a pregnancy pact. The film was screened at the 2011 Montreal World Film Festival[4] and the 2011 Cannes Film Festival.[5] 17 Girls is based on the alleged pregnancy pact that took place at Gloucester High School in Massachusetts in 2008.[6]
17 Girls | |
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Film poster | |
Directed by | Delphine Coulin Muriel Coulin |
Produced by | Denis Freyd[1] |
Written by | Delphine Coulin Muriel Coulin |
Starring | Louise Grinberg Juliette Darche Roxane Duran Esther Garrel[2] Florence Thomassin Noémie Lvovsky |
Cinematography | Jean-Louis Vialard |
Edited by | Guy Lecorne[2] |
Distributed by | Diaphana Films |
Release date |
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Running time | 86 minutes[1] |
Country | France |
Language | French |
Budget | $3 million |
Box office | $716,542[3] |
The 2010 American film The Pregnancy Pact is based on the same story.
Plot
In Lorient, 17 teenage girls from the same high school make an unexpected decision, incomprehensible to the boys and adults. They decide to get pregnant at the same time. Camille (Louise Grinberg) lives alone with her mother who is overwhelmed by her work. She becomes pregnant after a condom problem with a sexual partner who is not her boyfriend. She is the first to discover a positive pregnancy test.
She wants to keep her child, which will convince the others to become pregnant and they can all raise their children together. These girls do not want to comply with the traditional code of conduct and just want to "give the love they have to a baby." Emancipation, is the keyword of these girls who build a plan to no longer be reflections of their parents. "We will be only 16 years apart from our kids, this is ideal. We will be closer in age, no clash of generations!" They decide to educate their future children together in the form of a "hippie community."
In the end, Camille loses her baby after a minor traffic accident. She and her mother leave town without telling anyone where they've gone. The other girls have their babies, but they do not form a "community." One girl is miserable as a young unwed mother and seems to regret her decision to have a child so young, another girl had to dropout of school and work long hours in a dead-end minimum wage job to support her child, another girl decides to give her child up for adoption to a more affluent couple from Paris, and another has her baby with the help and support of her parents who will help raise the kid while she finishes high school and later studies at college.
Cast
- Louise Grinberg : Camille
- Esther Garrel : Flavie
- Roxane Duran : Florence
- Solène Rigot : Mathilde
- Juliette Darche : Julia
- Yara Pilartz : Clementine
- Florence Thomassin : Camille's mother
- Noémie Lvovsky : high school nurse
- Carlo Brandt : the headmaster
- Frédéric Noaille : Florian
- Arthur Verret : Tom
- Jocelyne Desverchère : Clementine's mother
- Serge Moati : TV journalist
Reception
Premiere magazine likened 17 Girls to The Virgin Suicides by Sofia Coppola saying "same languid pop, same delicately grainy picture, same kind of heterogeneous female cast, same absence of boys, reduced to the roles of stooges".[7]
Awards and nominations
- Nominated for the Camera d'Or at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival
- Won the Michel d'Ornano Award at the Deauville American Film Festival
- Nominated for the 2012 César Award for Best First Feature Film
References
- Ogle, Connie (27 September 2012). "'17 Girls' (Unrated)". Miami Herald. Retrieved 4 October 2013.
- Holden, Stephen (20 September 2012). "Follow the Leader, to Extremes: '17 Girls,' Directed by Delphine and Muriel Coulin". The New York Times. Retrieved 4 October 2013.
- http://www.jpbox-office.com/fichfilm.php?id=12543
- Lake, Michael (30 August 2011). "I Want One, Too". The Rover. Archived from the original on 2013-10-04. Retrieved 4 October 2013.
- Mintzer, Jordan (15 May 2011). "17 Girls (17 Filles): Cannes Review". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 4 October 2013.
- Hess, Amanda (7 September 2012). "17 Girls: The pregnancy pact revisited as a French, feminist fantasy". Slate. Retrieved 4 October 2013.
- "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2015-09-24. Retrieved 2016-01-03.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)