An intoxicating air of past love suffuses this sexy, edgy drama about a young man's search for new beginnings. Simon (Gaspard Ulliel) is a passionate, 18-year-old student of pho­tography and film in Paris, still booking his first gallery shows. At year's end, he takes a train trip to his family's vacation home on an island off the coast of La Rochelle. Simon bristles with the expectation of a tense homecom­ ing; his father and sister ridicule his artistic pursuits, and only his mother, trailing her own string of broken dreams, shows Simon any real support. Furthermore, Simon once left a secret love behind in this sleepy community: an older boy and lighthouse-keeper named Mathieu.

On the train home, Simon encounters Marie, a beautiful young wanderer. Warming to Marie's rapt atten­ tions, he brashly takes her home for the holidays. Posing as Simon's girlfriend, Marie acts more as his muse: a free spirit whose nubile beauty guides Simon's Super-8 camera on dreamlike wanderings.

Things heat up when Mathieu walks out of the past and into the frame, reigniting the embers of an old love. This encounter between the three young people offers new challenges and lessons to Simon, whose negotiation of family struggles and personal demons brings the story to a jarring and deadly climax. Writer-director Rodolphe Marconi lends an exquisite lightness of touch to this film, along with a deep appreciation of life's loose ends and ephemeral promises.