Being 17

Damien is the pampered teenage. But he shows a new, defiant side of himself in high school in order to stave off the bullies who taunt him over his effeminate ways: a friend of his father's is teaching him to wrestle.

When he meets Tom, the adopted son of local farmers, the hatred between the two boys is immediate and visceral. But when Tom's mother is forced to go to the hospital, Damien's mother quite naturally offers to take Tom into their home for a short while. The tension between the two boys becomes more and more palpable…

André Téchiné (born 13 March 1943) is a French screenwriter and film director. He has a long and distinguished career that places him among the best post-New Wave French film directors.

He belongs to a second generation of French film critics associated with Cahiers du cinéma who followed François Truffaut, Claude Chabrol, Jean-Luc Godard and others from criticism into film-making. Téchiné is noted for his elegant and emotionally charged films that often delve into the complexities of emotions and the human condition.

One of the trademarks of his filmography is the lyrical examination of human relations in a sensitive but unsentimental way, as can be seen in his most acclaimed films: My Favorite Season (1993) and Wild Reeds (1994).