Ari (France, 2025)
Original title: Ari
Director: Léonor Serraille
Screenplay: Léonor Serraille
Main cast: Andranic Manet, Pascal Rénéric, Théo Delezenne, Ryad Ferrad, Eva Lallier, Lomane de Dietrich and Audrey Bonnet
Running time: 88 minutes
Starting with a dreamlike atmosphere, lulled by the tuning of a guitar, we’re introduced to a woman and her son talking about the origin of the boy’s name, Ari. In addition to the beautiful text about a child who comes to brighten his parents’ lives, the numerous close-ups help the viewer understand the closeness between them.
We’re soon transported to this same boy, now a man, trying to teach a group of children while being evaluated by a woman. On the verge of a panic attack, Ari (Andranic Manet) tries in every way to regain control and get the message across to his students, but he fails to realize the inadequacy of the message he wants to convey to the audience, who are young children. This inadequacy is what we feel throughout the film, as he’s thrown out of his father’s (Pascal Rénéric) house and wanders around Paris looking for places to sleep.
In this film about a young man and a generation in crisis, we are introduced to various French characters, from the couple who are heirs to the house’s gardener. More than that, we are invited to delve into the anxieties of this generation that cannot quite understand its place in the world, and instead of dealing with it, prefers to prolong the problems, reaching a late and even irritating adolescence that leaves us begging for the characters to go to therapy.
So, in this therapy film that we find ourselves in, we continue to understand what the boy’s real fears and traumas are, with small flashback scenes appearing in the middle of the narrative progression. With different coloring and lighting, we are able to understand what event really marked his life, and how the maturity that’s now required of him was put to the test. And, as much as it tries to avoid European bourgeois stereotypes through the story of his friends, we gradually understand that this is a story that has already been told and retold in the movies, this time with a more introspective and self-centered perspective.
The film works better in these moments of reflection than when it includes an excess of dialogues that seem to be there just to show us what the situation of the young Frenchman is like. In the scenes where Ari simply observes his surroundings or interacts with the environment, we end up creating a connection with the character, but it’s still difficult for someone who isn’t European to connect with the type of problem that’s presented.
The same happens with the film’s resolution, which seems abrupt and meaningless to us. Even with the choice to end the film in a positive way, sending a message of hope to this seemingly lost generation, nothing builds the situation that’s presented. When the lights come on, the dissatisfied faces in the movie theater show that, really, the work leaves much to be desired in its third act.
