Something in the Air (Après mai) - 2012 - 2 1/2 Stars

Director: Oliver Assayas
Cast: Clément Métayer, Lola Créton, Felix Armand, Carole Combes

Making autobiographical movies is a tricky proposition; the director must walk a thin line between using their experience to craft a detailed, naturalistic aesthetic and telling stories that no one else cares about. Something in the Air is a fictionalized adaption of Oliver Assayas's non-fiction essay A Post-May Adolescence. It follows Gilles, an Assayas surrogate, during the summer after his second to last year in high school as he bounces between different French socialist organizations, hippy communes and his father's work while he tries to find himself romantically, artistically and professionally.

The film has a loose, meandering structure, which is designed to mimic our hero's lack of focus as he travels from group to group. At times it's a successful series of focused vignettes, but as the revolutionary movements Gilles is associated with begin to splinter and lose power, so does the film. The film's first hour is dynamic and lively, but the second half loses that energy as the story shifts to one of what happens when youthful vivaciousness fades. The film's second half rings true thematically and historically, but it's a slog to watch the dissolution of revolutionary movement not via coup, but via waning interest and mild evolutions in maturity.

Assayas's strong authorial voice gives the film a strong sense of place, but also causes it to veer into self-indulgence. Assayas digs deep into his own record collection, which gives the film a sense of time and place beyond a generic "the 70's". The soundtrack replaces 70's staples from Sticky Fingers and Who' Next (which I doubt they could afford had they wanted to use them anyways) and replaces them with Captain Beefheart and other more eclectic musicians that Assayas has a connection with. Assayas indulging his musical taste is delightful, the conversations name checking his personal favorite political philosophers are less so. I appreciate that the high-schooler's in the film possess an intellectual surety that can only be held by teenagers. To them the choice between being Trotskyite or a Leninist is the equivalent to the choice between Communism and Fascism, but this specificity is draining during long conversations where Assayas references his favorite philosophers even as it gives the film the same detailed textures I liked about his soundtrack.

Roger Ebert ended his review of Midnight in Paris, by saying , "I'm wearying of movies that are for 'everybody' — which means, nobody in particular." I appreciate that Assayas made a movie that is for someone in particular, but as the movie dragged on it felt like I was watching friends tell a story that I wasn't present for and was littered with inside jokes I didn't get. There is someone in particular who will love this movie, but it's not me.