Bang Gang is a The Kids Are All Wrong piece that passes pleasantly but aimlessly by, making points that have all been made before, and is thus rather reassuring.

The bang gangers are privileged, alienated, promiscuous, druggy and out of control, but they don’t seem to be any more depraved than the privileged, alienated, druggy, promiscuous and out of control kids we have been seeing in these kinds of films for the last twenty years.

And that’s got to be a positive – since Larry Clark’s Kid, teen degeneracy has basically plateaued.

In Bang Gang there are all the usual figure from teen scare movies.

The kid whose parents have left him all alone at home; the firm friends who fall out over a boy; the high school beauty who spirals downwards; the sensitive boy with curly hair who likes music. It all takes place in French suburbia where parents are largely absent over a long hot summer.

The film is full of nudity and sex scenes but it is rather coy and childlike.

Husson shoots everything with a dreamy sheen so it slides pass like you the window view of a pleasant train journey.

She isn’t afraid of the obvious, such as using a black cloud as a sign of dark time coming.

The obviousness and simplicity of the imagery mirror her characters’ outlook.

There is a backdrop of news reports of trains being derailed but actually the film’s conclusions are basically optimistic – that the kids will grow out of it.

There’s no need to be shocked.

Rating: 2/5 stars

In French with English subtitles.