17 Girls

Though based on an actual case of 17 nearly simultaneous pregnancies at a Massachusetts high school, Delphine and Muriel Coulin’s 17 Girls matter isn’t a salacious story of teenage promiscuity but a meditative take on a woman taking charge of her own body, albeit in an incredibly misguided way. With the setting changed from a Massachusetts fishing town to a French fishing town—improbably populated by the most unfailingly beautiful group of high school girls possible—the rash of pregnancies happens after school tastemaker Camille (The Class’s Louise Grinberg) tells her friends that her unwanted pregnancy is not a total drag. In fact, she argues, it means instant adulthood with total freedom and the unconditional love of someone. Sold — a pregnancy pact is made.

17 Girls is far from an indictment of the stupidity of these teenagers, or, for that matter, anything. Though this may be a major period of transition for the group, the film’s overall tone is one of complete stasis. Any sense of linear time heading towards a conclusion—in this case, the birth of a baby—is thrown out with the bathwater. The girls languish on the beach, drinking and smoking and pregnant with babies and novelty, like bored members of a cult. The passage of time manifests in changing physiologies, but dramatic conclusions or punch lines never show. With an equally unmoving camera, 17 Girls quite literally goes nowhere.

Despite living in a supposedly deadbeat town with nothing but fish, the girls all plan to settle right there with their baby commune. The gently love-hate relationship with the seaside settlement could resonate as a note of sincerity amidst the girls’ calculated plans, but that potential is undermined by cinematography that’s beautiful in an off-putting way. DP Jean-Louis Vialard captures stunning beach vistas, yet his digital photography is cool, anesthetized, betraying zero warmth towards the locale. The subdued briny-blue tones maintain a fashionable detachment to the girls and their unborn children.

And without our ever actually seeing the babies with whom the characters are pregnant (postpartum life gets only the briefest of codas), the students are just models. Camille and her cohorts show off their bellies, mannequins in a visual editorial that toys with the idea of pregnant teenagers and what-ifs rather than playing out its reality. Unfortunately, it’s a thought experiment that yields no results.