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Bang Gang (A Modern Love Story)/Bang Gang (Une histoire d'amour moderne)

3/10

Stars: Finnegan Oldfield, Daisy Broom, Fred Hotier, Lorenzo Lefebvre, Marilyn Lima

Director: Eva Husson

With the Internet now on hand to supply all the porn that people seeking sexual stimulation could possibly desire – and then more – sex movies tend to be subtitled so that they can claim art movie status and even sociological relevance for depicting as much graphic sex and general nudity as the Censor will allow.

Even more aptly, perhaps, when considering the heyday of “saucy cinema” all those years ago, Bang Gang is a French film and was screened at the London Film Festival, which, almost obviously, endorses its status as an art movie.

Writer-director Eva Husson’s debut feature film centres on pretty French teenager Marilyn Lima who falls for fellow teenager Finnegan Oldfield who, conveniently, is home alone while his divorced mother is away.

So far, so clichéd, as every moviegoer who has sat through any number of coming-of-age dramas of any nationality will attest.

Then Husson swerves sexily from the standard hormone-driven teen romance tradition when Lima creates the eponymous multi-player sex game, which eventually leaves of its young all-too-eager participants having to face the bitter realities of abortion and sexually transmitted diseases…

The predominantly young cast sheds their clothes and inhibitions as directed – fans of hackneyed characters, flesh ad lib and simulated sex will not be disappointed despite a narrative that (minus sex and nudity) would easily serve as the basis for a television soap.

It’s obvious that first-time Husson had something to say but, sadly she says it in basically in an embarrassingly unconvincing and banal way.

To quote (out of context, to be sure, but apt nonetheless) when one character comments about Algiers saying “It’s so profoundly mediocre” he could have been reviewing the film itself.

Alan Frank

France 2015. UK Distributor: Metrodome. Colour.
94 minutes. Widescreen. UK certificate: 18.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 3, Violence/Horror 1, Drugs 3, Swearing 3.

Review date: 19 Jun 2016