Synopsis

In Paris in 1968, American student Matthew meets twins Theo and Isabelle at the Cinematheque during protests over Henri Langlois' dismissal. Invited into their parents' apartment while the adults are away, he becomes part of a closed world built from movie quotations, quizzes, dares, and sexual experimentation. As the May upheaval intensifies outside, the trio's private games grow increasingly difficult to separate from politics, identity, and adulthood.

Factoids & Trivia

• The screenplay was written by Gilbert Adair, adapting his own 1988 novel, originally published as The Holy Innocents.

• The film's opening is rooted in the real-life 1968 protests over the removal of Henri Langlois from the Cinémathèque Francaise. The dispute helped trigger demonstrations that became an important part of the May 1968 unrest.

• The famous sprint through the Louvre is a direct homage to Jean-Luc Godard's Band of Outsiders, in which three characters race through the museum while attempting to beat a recorded time.

• The production filmed at the Louvre and the Cinémathèque Francaise during the summer of 2002. Much of the movie was shot on actual Paris locations rather than in studio sets.

• Classic movie clips and recreated scenes are woven into the story, turning the characters' cinephilia into a visual conversation with films from the French New Wave and earlier Hollywood cinema.

• Eva Green made her credited feature-film debut in the movie.

• The film was presented out of competition at the 2003 Venice Film Festival.

• Although the story unfolds against the May 1968 demonstrations, its main focus is the private world of three young cinephiles. The political crisis functions as an outside pressure that eventually challenges their enclosed fantasy life.