George (Marilyn Lima), a teenaged girl living in Biarritz, becomes obsessed with a boy she meets named Alex (Finnegan Oldfield). To get his attention, she initiates a game with their friends, discovering, testing, and pushing the limits of their sexuality. Each of the teens, including George’s best friend Laetitia (Daisy Broom) and Alex’s friend Nikita (Fred Hotier) has a different reaction to these impromptu sex parties (which they call bang gangs). George then finds herself attracted to Laetitia’s socially awkward neighbor, Gabriel (Lorenzo Lefebvre), who is reluctant to attend the bang gangs but finally acquiesces. When the nature of the group’s activities is revealed, each of the teens deals with the scandal in radically different ways. Faced with major consequences, they are forced to reassess their priorities, ultimately coming to terms with their true feelings and desires. I sat down with writer/director Eva Husson to talk about this beautifully acted and frank film that caused quite a bit of controversy at home in France and abroad.
Danny Miller: I think there’s this notion that Americans are a lot more prudish than French people when it comes to on-screen depictions of sexual activity. Are you getting different reactions from audiences here than you did at home?
Eva Husson: Not really. I’ve been very pleasantly surprised by the reaction I’ve had to the film in this country so far. The people who respond well to this type of film have very similar reactions than the people in France. But I totally recognize that some people will simply not be drawn to this content. But don’t forget that I actually based the film on a real-life story that happened here in the United States.
Oh right, I did read that in the production notes.
I’m not sure there’s much of a difference between French and American teenagers in terms of their relationship with their bodies. As I developed the film, I was actually very inspired by the American photographer Ryan McGinley who does a lot of interesting work with teenagers. I mean, it’s true that nudity in France is less a big deal than it is here, we certainly have a lot more on our beaches, for example, but what happens in this movie is not part of any kind of normal mainstream in France.
Of course we all bring our own baggage with us when we go to the movies. Have you noticed a different reaction to the film between men and women?
Yes, and I’m very happy about the responses I’ve had from women who have seen the film. A lot of them have thanked me for showing a different side of female sexuality that’s not portrayed on the screen very often. I think women film directors are just going to have a different lens when we portray sexuality in our movies. We know that sexuality is certainly not always about “sexiness” as it tends to be when depicted through the male gaze. There can be a lot of enjoyment but also a lot of uncertainty and confusion such as when George thinks she’s in love with Alex. She has a very powerful physical chemistry with him at first but then she realizes with Gabriel that there are all sorts of other possibilities. I just saw this great movie the other day called Mon Roi or My King directed by Maiwenn and I was struck by how she represented female sexuality in such a different way than we’re used to seeing on screen.
Even though, as a parent, watching this film makes me want to lock my daughter in her dorm room, there’s also a kind of innocence to these young people’s activities.
(Laughs.) Yes, that’s what I wanted to explore. I wanted the characters to walk that path where you can have some extreme experiences during adolescence because that’s what you need to do to find your own limits. That’s really your job as a human being, that’s how you grow up. Nobody can do that job for you.
And sometimes that process of finding those limits is easy and joyful and sometimes it’s painful and agonizing.
Exactly. And, look, if it happens painfully, it’s not the end of the world, it’s just part of life. Some people have interpreted the situation with the STDs in the film as some kind of “punishment” for these kids, but I don’t see it that way at all — it’s just life. You do something, there may be consequences, but you deal with them and move on.
So you never really intended for this film to be a “cautionary tale?” Did you ever consider dropping the whole STD subplot?
Yes, I did, actually, for that very reason. But in the end I just felt that would be completely unrealistic. A few people have been rather aggressive about it saying that my film is extremely moralistic. To them I just want to say, “Well, I’m sorry you didn’t understand the film at all.” The truth with the STDs is that statistically, you simply cannot engage in this kind of behavior without that being a part of it. But they’ll be fine — and they’ll take something out of that experience.
I think as parents we often look at our children though this lens of conscious denial. We know our kids are doing certain things, even if it’s not to the point of the activity of these characters, but we just don’t want to think about it!
My child is only two years old, but I honestly think that the best thing you can give your children is a variety of tools to handle all sorts of different experiences they may have in life, including harsh ones. Trying to shelter them from life is just going to produce the opposite result, we all know that!
Of course, today’s access to digital media and teenagers’ obsession with social media creates a whole new playing field.
It really does. You know the biggest difference? In our day we were lucky that we could really develop this notion of who we were from the inside out. Now, though, with the speed of social media, the outside representation of kids is out there for everyone to see and comment on, even before their inside understanding is fully developed. It does make things more complicated for them.
It’s so true. Everything is out there for the world to see. I so loved the young cast that you assembled for this film. They were all great, but I thought Marilyn Lima, who played George, had “future big star” written all over her!
I had exactly the same feeling when I first met her. Marilyn walked in the room and I just went “Whoa!” I initially found her on the Tumblr site of a young photographer who had been photographing her and her friends naked. I was looking for young people who were comfortable with nudity, I really needed that sense of ease. Marilyn is so talented and she immediately got signed by a great agent right after the film came out. Most of these people had no film experience at all.
Even though they knew that nudity would be required in these roles, you still must have had to create a special kind of set where they felt very safe.
Yes. What helped a lot with that was that I was able to start the casting process very early on — more than a year before we shot the film which is quite unusual. I told my producer that we really needed that time to develop a rapport and make sure they were comfortable. I did everything in my power to make sure things were easy and smooth on set and not intense at all.
I assume getting to know them so early in the process allowed you to rewrite their characters a bit based on their personalities?
Absolutely. I had some basic ideas laid out for each character and then I supplemented that with their own idiosyncrasies. For example, Daisy Broom who played Laetitia, had this wonderful weirdness about her that is so special. The kind of thing that you can’t really write down on a page. I worked with each actor to really find their character.
Were there any conservative groups in France that came out against the film?
Oh, we’ve already had a trial against the film! (Laughs.) Well, not against the film per se, but against the Ministry of Culture because the film came out with a PG-13 rating. I forget the name of this organization but they went after the Ministry of Culture about our rating, saying it was outrageous that some children would be allowed to see this film. They were going after Quentin Tarantino for his latest film at the same time so I was in good company.
And I’m sure the publicity didn’t hurt!
Not at all. I actually wrote an article in one of our newspapers that thanked them for the extra publicity. (Laughs.) I also stated the obvious that filmmaking is all about different subjective views of the world. I totally understand if other people have different views, that’s fine, but you can’t take any of my views away from me. Some people have these experiences and you can’t just pretend they don’t. If you don’t want your teenager to see the film, that’s completely fine with me. But I also heard from many teenagers who thanked me for this representation.
And unlike most films by male directors dealing with sexuality, it wasn’t only the girls who were naked. I was impressed by how comfortable the guy who played Nikita was in that scene where he strips for the girls towards the beginning of the movie.
Oh, that scene is so funny because it actually happened to me! I was at this party for our celebration of the 14th of July (Bastille Day) with some girlfriends and this guy started stripping in front of us just like that. At the time I was like, “Holy fucking fuck!” But I was so struck by how comfortable he was with his body that I just had to write that scene!