You’d think a 16-year-old living on the sun-drenched Cote d’Azur would take advantage of his affluent family’s hilltop villa by enjoying a last carefree summer by the pool before the anxious prospect of university — and the future — looms. But in this richly insightful character portrait of a confused teenager figuring out who he is as an almost-man, Enzo decides to join a construction crew, defying his father’s loftier expectations of him… and bringing him into the magnetic presence of Vlad, an assured, handsome Ukrainian builder fleeing his country’s battlefront. As Enzo’s fascination with Vlad deepens into longing, the youth’s half-formed ideas about masculinity and privilege drive him to the brink of disaster, both with his family and with Vlad.

Told with the same compassion and non-judgmental emotional truth as his ACT UP epic BPM (Beats Per Minute), director Robin Campillo (working from a screenplay by the late Laurent Cantet) has crafted a gay coming-of-age story that embraces more than just a sexual awakening, as Enzo must confront the complex realities of class, exile, war, and what courage really looks like.