And Their Children After Them

The humble visual language is a vessel for a rich human drama. Bear with what sometimes resembles a television movie for the slowburn panorama of life it captures.

Class and racial tensions come to the boil in this potent tale of disaffected youth in smalltown France.

And Their Children After Them is a big, sweeping melodrama which, although undeniably cinematic, struggles to sustain audience engagement throughout its overly generous running time.

This is a sizable step up for the Boukherma brothers from the smaller-canvas genre films they have done up to now and they bring a satisfying cinematic sweep to the material that feels more Hollywood than French — for better or worse. Their sensitive direction of the intimate exchanges is sharp, even if scenes veer at times from melodrama into soap.

Where the the writing is wan, the filmmaking compensates with emphatic braggadocio. Augustin Barbaroux’s cinematography is all humidly saturated tones and rolling, kinetic movement.

A small-town coming-of-age story blown up to rock-opera dimensions, And Their Children After Them puts a roaringly romantic widescreen frame around some well-worn dramatic themes, but never quite hits the epic emotional high notes it strains to reach.