At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

17 Girls (2011)Lots of mid-teen girl stuff on French beaches. And yet supposedly a social issue movie about a rash of intentional pregnancies at a high school. There are scenes between the girls that pry into contemporary youth culture but only get the lid off. This is a sensational idea with the depth of a single gasp.Even stranger, once you get into it, is how the movie makers, the writer/director pair Delphine and Muriel Coulin (both did both), took an American high school news story and adapted it to this small industrial coastal city in France. It doesn't right true. The utter rebellion of the kids to reason, their various trajectories around peer pressure and media hype, and the general glibness of some of the school reactions all seem a bit callous, and without nuance. There is an attempt at depth (and some of the best acting) though the main character, Camille, played by Louise Grinberg. Here the need for such rebellion seems to have roots in her psyche and her family situation. How this effect "spreads" and becomes an easy viral sense of irresponsibility is not given much thought, however. There are three or four other girls who are given some complexity, but not enough to quite explain their motiviations.Maybe the project was doomed when the writers faced the central problem—this is both about a large effect (over a dozen girls, en masse) and an individual problem (one by one). How to do both? Especially when it happens pretty much simultaneously.There is a low budget documentary on the real deal—"The Gloucester 18" which is apparently (from their press kit) a kind of public service piece against teen pregnancy— and there is a TV series in Spanish called "El Pacto" that supposedly expands on the sensational aspects of the story. I'm not sure any of it is worth the trouble more than just reading a new article about the phenomenon. The movie here is curious at first, slow to get going, and has a few interesting moments, but it hardly holds up over an hour and a half.

Sometimes I just do not want to live on this planet anymore. A "poetic" movie about girls who want to become mass pregnant, because they are kinda bored? And that did actually happen somewhere? Having a kid in adolescence is probably the totally worst rebellion you can possibly do. It is actually just a "f*k you" shout at your very own parents, then you will return to them and beg for help. You will have no bloody idea what to do and will not be able to survive without their help. You will became even more dependent on them. You will waste your life and theirs as well. There is nothing poetic or charming on such rebellion.It is just a pure explosion of idiocy, that will very probably lead to wasted life. Young marriage will rarely work and hardly anybody will have interest in 22 years old single mothers with 6 years old kids. Usually the less successful, the old, the divorced, the outsiders, amazing choices here. I have seen this multiple times. You have passed education for parenthood and this leads to inevitable career choices. Poorly paid bartenders, cashiers and such. Then you are in early 30ies, fighting your own teenage rebel at home. Your life is full of badly masked self hate and hate to men. It's easy to spot these people, just walk into bar at late hour and you will meet some of them. I'm really disgusted by this sort of young stupid and feel no pity to them.I'm so angry by such "poetic" movies that show this bored spoiled youngsters as a "dreamers". Yes, in some sense even the Mason's family were "dreamers". That makes them no less disgusting. "Nothing can stop 17 years old girl that dreams." Oh yes, something can. Your kids, baby. The game is over now, the dream is over. This "rebellion" will make a lifetime slave from you, because you were so so so incredibly stupid. And making advertisements for such decisions is no less stupid.

The first thing of note here is the quality of the acting and direction. The way everything is natural and believable here is mind boggling. These are very young girls and yet they're caught on film doing things we've all seen young girls do as if the camera were invisible. How is that possible? Because if they're only acting they are incredibly convincing.If I were a director filming a competing film about female adolescents I would shoot myself out of sheer envy. And I'm afraid I can only attribute the poor reviews this film got to something similar. I much prefer a different more masculine kind of film, but I was riveted by this film's persuasiveness. That's quite a trick. This director is ingenious. If he or she is not given some meaty project after this masterful accomplishment then I'm quite sure the movie industry is dooming itself to deliberate mediocrity.The only caveat I have is that the story itself, in the end, is not very satisfying. However, as I understand it, the true story behind this fanciful embellishment was even less satisfying. In other words this movie is a flight of imagination on pretty slim facts. But don't let that stop you from seeing it, it's unforgettable.

There's something irrefutably Gallic about this arresting rite-of- passage movie. When social maypole Camille falls pregnant at her French high school, her friends and other hangers-on take it upon themselves to get pregnant too. The film focuses on the girls and the dynamics of their relationships in this novel situation. What's so French about it though is that no-one seems to be able to get to the bottom of why this has come to pass. Despite plenty of dialogue bouncing off the topic the only real causal suggestion comes in the repeated - and silent - sequences of shots which observe the girls' bodies and frame the girls in their provincial bedrooms, staring into space, bored or dreaming. It's like Sofia Coppola's Virgin Suicides, with all the generational disconnect, and birth substituted for death.Dreaming is the key, a word which appears in the poetic pay-off voice-over line at the close. With little on offer in the town, the girls look to create their future for themselves in this radical way. As it is with young people in this country, there is little thought given to the practical ramifications of the birth, the '18 years of sacrifice' that Camille's mother refers to, berating her headstrong daughter. Instead the girls cling do their legal research - how to wrest themselves from parental control and the state's financial obligations - and cling to one another for the rest.It's a well-observed, often touching film in which the Coulin sisters manage a consistent tension. It's the tension of the vacuum around young people making demands for money, which come with too few or too heavy a burden of responsibility attached. I enjoyed the inclusion of Camille's brother, a soldier whose dreams are mortgaged to the state that has sent him to war. In a dreadful, subtle scene we see photos of his mascot teddy, a childish toy, propped up against the guns as if firing them.An absorbing, realist film that would stand up well in a double feature against the melodrama of Romain Gavras' Our Day Will Come (2010). 6/10