Le Péril Jeune

Four thirty-something men await the birth of a child fathered by their dead pal; as they reminisce, we're taken back to their schooldays in the early '70s, when picking up girls, political demos, squats and drugs seemed more important than settling down or thinking about the future. The film's a bitter-sweet tribute to the trials and joys of friendship, distinguished less by its final stance on drugs and irresponsibility than by its energetic, wry and affectionately vivid re-creation of what now, 20 years on, seems an unfashionable decade. It could be tougher and subtler, but it's highly watchable all the same.