Film Review – Rodeo (2022)

“Asphalt pirates”. It’s director Lola Quivoron’s affectionate name for the young people at the centre of her debut feature, Rodeo, a vivid way of describing the disassociated teenagers and twentysomethings whose lives are ruled by the thrill and excitement of illegal biker meetings, the rodeos of the title. And in the film that won Quivoron the Un Certain Regard Jury Coup de Coeur at last year’s Cannes, many of the ones we meet on screen are the real deal.

Rebellious teenager Julia (Julie Ledru, in her film debut) shares their ion for dirt bikes, loving the freedom that goes with speed and the risks that go with the near-suicidal stunts she sees at the rodeos. But the bikers are all male, getting together to show off their prowess on deserted stretches of road, and women only have a small part to play – a decorative one. Julia doesn’t fit that mould, nor does she want to, but she still wants to be accepted and finds a way in through a small group who repair bikes and sell them on. As she discovers, they have a more lucrative side hustle – stealing bikes and selling them to buyers located by their boss, Domino (Sebastien Shroeder), who operates the scheme from inside his prison cell. Julia, who earns the gang name of Unknown, comes up with a plan for a heist that would be their biggest ever payday and Domino agrees to it, but it comes with more and bigger risks than those biker meets.

Quivoron based the story on her experiences growing up in the Paris suburbs, where she saw young people doing motocross in front of the building where she lived. The truth behind the story and her background in documentary shine through a film that’s part gangster movie, part crime flick and part social drama, all played out at full throttle. Many of the characters in the film are real life bikers – Ledru included – and the strong sense of authenticity permeating the film extends to extensive improvisation and hand held camera footage. You can almost smell the gasoline, sniff the testosterone and feel the exhilaration that goes with the noisy acceleration, the wind in your face and the heart pounding wheelies. Danger is ever-present, but Quivoron makes sure we’re in no doubt by showing us in detail how those thrills can turn deadly in a split-second, with emotional consequences for many of the riders.

For Julia/Unknown – and, indeed, for many of the other young people – the meets and the groups that live for them represent the closest they have to family. Among the gang at the garage, she starts to feel she belongs, that she’s valued, and her star rises when she displays a neat trick for stealing bikes. It impresses her incarcerated boss and is her ticket to somewhere she can call home, however precarious. The performances are gritty – Ledru is electric – the heist sequence almost unbearably tense, but it’s also balanced by a growing friendship between Julia/Unknown and Ophelie (Antonia Buresi), Domino’s constantly stressed wife who struggles with bringing up her hyperactive young son.

Contemporary in its locations and issues, Rodeo is a modern Greek tragedy in a French setting, one where the presence of death overshadows both the narrative and its characters. It’s inevitable, and is no respecter of person or age. Julia actively longs for it. The others simply choose to ignore it and take their chances. Whatever the cost.

★★★★

Drama, Crime | Cinemas and Curzon | French | Cert: 15 | Dir: Lola Quivoron | Julie Ledru, Yannis Lafki, Antonia Buresi, Junior Correia, Dave Nsaman, Sebastien Shroeder.