French director Hubert Charuel, following his 2017 debut Bloody Milk, returns with a somber portrayal of despair and stagnation in a declining region of France in his new film Meteor. Premiered in the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight, the film vividly captures the spirit of France’s “diagonale du vide” — a sparsely populated swath stretching from the Belgian and Luxembourg borders to the Pyrenees — a term symbolizing rural decline and desolation.
Set in Charuel’s hometown of Saint-Dizier, Meteor centers on three childhood friends in their twenties — Mika (Paul Kircher), Daniel (Idir Azougli), and Tony (Salif Cissé) — whose lives remain mired in inertia and aimlessness. The story opens amid the noisy chaos of a boys’ night at a bowling alley, hinting at bonds forged in youth but now frayed by harsh realities.
Tony, the most enterprising of the trio, is trying to launch a small waste management business but remains mostly absent from the film’s focus, which instead highlights the unhealthy dependence between Mika and Daniel. Mika works at Burger King, clinging to a semblance of normalcy and hoping for escape, while Daniel spirals into reckless schemes fueled by heavy drinking. One ill-conceived plan—kidnapping a neighbor’s purebred Maine Coon cat—lands both in trouble with local authorities, an episode that underscores their desperation and delusion.
Despite moments of absurdity reminiscent of the Coen Brothers’ dark humor, Charuel’s direction is straightforward and unembellished. Daniel’s severe alcoholism and deteriorating health become central to the narrative, yet the script falls short of fully exploring his tragic depth. His portrayal lacks the magnetic vulnerability needed to evoke genuine empathy or to explain Mika’s relentless commitment to saving him, a dynamic that remains puzzling without a deeper insight into their shared past.
Visually, Jacques Girault’s cinematography offers occasional striking and surreal imagery, but the bleak setting and slow pacing weigh down the film’s momentum. The narrative’s focus on fractured male friendships and wasted potential lacks dramatic propulsion, rendering the characters’ struggles less impactful.
The film’s title, Meteor, seems intended as a metaphor for fleeting brilliance before extinction. However, the story dwells predominantly on decline without moments of luminous vitality. The pervasive gloom and repeated cynical commentary—such as the ironic depiction of local garbage workers—feel worn and ultimately ineffective, lacking levity or emotional clarity to underscore the story’s themes of friendship unraveling under pressure.
Charuel’s sincere commitment to portraying marginalized youth and a fading community is evident, yet Meteor remains emotionally elusive. Rather than illuminating its characters’ inner lives, the film resigns itself to a melancholy acceptance of decay. In this, it offers a somber, unvarnished portrait of a forgotten town and its inhabitants, one unlikely to inspire much beyond a sense of quiet despair.
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