The film is set in the town of Villeneuve-sur-Lot and environs in southwest France in 1962. François (
Gaël Morel), a shy young man from the lower middle class, is working towards his high school diploma. He spends most of his time talking about movies and literature with his best friend, Maïté (
Élodie Bouchez), whose mother Mme Alvarez (
Michèle Moretti) is François's French teacher. Mme Alvarez and Maïté are communists. At the boarding school, François becomes acquainted with Serge (
Stéphane Rideau), the sensual son of immigrant farmers. At night, he joins François in the dormitory to chat. Finally, Serge draws François into an erotic relationship. François discovers his homosexuality and develops a deep attraction for Serge, who has only acted out of curiosity. François confides this discovery to Maïté, who swallows her disappointment and encourages him to
come out of the closet. When Serge becomes increasingly interested in Maïté, she declares herself to be interested in nobody. Serge's brother Pierre dies while serving in the army in Algeria, and Maïté's mother suffers a nervous breakdown, having previously refused to help Pierre desert. An Algerian-born French exile, Henri (
Frédéric Gorny), enrolls in the boys' boarding school and aggravates their conflicts, adding a political conflict. He is obsessed with events in Algeria and supports the
OAS, which opposes Algerian independence and defends the rights of
French settlers there. He treats François without sympathy and bluntly tells him to own up to his homosexuality. His political stance provokes Serge's hatred. Henri finally engages Maïté, his political opposite, where he impresses himself upon her and she dubiously submits. Each member of the quartet develops in the course of the film, shifting repeatedly from stubborn positions to more flexible appreciations of their circumstances, explained in French class by a reading of "
The Oak and the Reed", one of
La Fontaine's Fables. ==Cast==