The Age of Man

The DVD cover of Age of Man looks a bit like it should be amateur French gay porn about makeup-wearing Army boys who don’t so much mind the barracks life and communal showers. In actuality, it’s a fairly forgettable examination of a vacuous 30something filmmaker named Samuel (Romain Duris) who’s vacillating about commitment to his slightly imperfect live-in girlfriend Tina (Aissa Maiga). Giving himself a 24-hour window to decide if he should marry her, he goes out drinking with his buddies, Jorge and Mounir (Clement Sibony and Rachid Djaidani), to discuss pubic grooming and rim-jobs. After some drinks, he decides to go home with some random skank and bang her while she does Pilates and yaps endlessly about gym memberships and small nipples. It’s all done with a sense of comedic whimsy, featuring peculiar fantasy sequences involving cavemen, Jesus and war scenarios that are supposed to reveal the internal struggles and psychology of our brown-toothed, helmet-haired French protag. Perhaps Samuel’s anxieties around not being able to stick his dick in anything with tits after settling down with his girlfriend are identifiable to particularly single-minded men but realistically he should just be pleased that someone actually wants to be around his narrow, 90-pound ass for more than 15 minutes. If Fejto’s writing and direction had focused on personal reflection and psychology rather than shenanigans involving garden hoses and video rental, Samuel’s plight may have been more engaging, or even tolerable. But instead, he chooses to glide along the surface of things with a big stupid grin and absolutely no tangible life insights. The acting is decent amongst all lead thesps, in particular Duris, who does do his best to poke fun at his douche bag character without dipping into sheer mockery. The DVD includes no English features but has a French "Behind the Scenes” featurette that goes on endlessly with scene setups and character examinations.