“I don’t like you/but I love you.” So went a jukebox hit of the ‘60s, “You Really Got A Hold On Me,” written by Smokey Robinson for him and his group the Miracles and memorably covered by The Beatles. About suffering they were never wrong, the old masters, and so on.
The dislike between Thomas and Damien, the teen protagonists of the latest film by French master André Téchiné, is plain and real enough. Whether it s masking love is ultimately open to question, but what it barely masks is a raw erotic magnetism. Damien (Kacey Mottet Klein) is a pale, gangly scholarly type who’s got a relatively cushy life in a very scenic mountain village. His dad is away in the army (he’s a pilot) and his doctor mother (Sandrine Kiberlain) is a do-gooder around the neighborhood. One way she helps out the community is by inviting Thomas (Corentin Fila), a mixed-race adopted kid from a less privileged family whose mother is ill, to live in the house with her and Damien. Bad move: