Microbe and Gasoline (2015, Dir. Michel Gondry):
Michel Gondry’s career has led him through music videos, surreal cult classics (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), and even a stab at Hollywood blockbusters (The Green Hornet). His latest film Microbe and Gasoline, which is a relatively sedate coming-of-age tale, wouldn’t seem to have much in common with his earlier work, but look a little closer, and you’ll recognize his unique sensibilities at play. Stress the word “play,” because his point of view is essentially that of a child: we get arbitrary turns of plot that seem as if they’ve sprung from the mind of a kid making things up as she goes, we have characters alienated from themselves and the world around them, and the overall mood see-saws between giddiness and fatalism, for what is a young person’s existence but dramatic extremes?
Extremes plague Microbe and Gasoline‘s protagonist, 14-year old Daniel (Ange Dargent). Idling away his school years in Versailles, he’s cursed with a slight frame that has earned him the nickname “Microbe,” and is often mistaken for a girl because of his stringy hair. When he’s not dealing with his flighty mom (bespectacled, almost unrecognizable Audrey Tatou) and her existential crises (she gives him a copy of The Soul of the Universe to read), or enduring an older brother going through his “punk” phase, he finds escape in his precocious sketches, including pornographic doodles of Laura (alas, the images are too crude to effectively jack off to). Daniel is in desperate need of a shake-up, which promptly arrives with new classmate Theo (Théophile Baquet), a smart-aleck grease monkey with the nickname “Gasoline.” Despite an unhappy home life — or perhaps because of it — Theo doesn’t give a shit about much of anything. Tooling around on a bicycle outfitted with sound effects, he’s blissfully free of self-doubt, and has a way with a line. (“Today’s bullies are tomorrow’s victims,” he cracks after getting tormented by the school ruffians.) Unfazed by Daniel’s nerdiness (“We all do strange things”), Theo is soon encouraging his pal to spread his wings, including an impromptu exhibition of his work at a local gallery (no one shows up, but Theo doesn’t miss the chance to hit on the gallery owner), or encouraging him to make a move on Laura (she doesn’t respond too well to the shorter kid asking her to dance, but you can’t win ’em all, and it leads to a sage observation from Theo: “Alcohol is the death of dignity”).
For a good while, Microbe and Gasoline plays like autobiography (Gondry grew up in Versailles), brightened up with quirky details and the performances of Dargent and Baquet, both impressive for fledgling actors. Truffaut’s The 400 Blows is a clear touchstone for the movie’s story, but the jaunty pace and near-whimsical tone is Gondry’s own. Both Daniel and Theo are out of step with their provincial town, and are cursed with awareness of this fact. “We’re totally underestimated. We can’t blossom in this lousy environment,” Theo grouses. Soon their quest to break the mold slides the film into daydream territory, as Theo comes up with the bright idea of constructing a car out of a 50cc motor, and embarking on an unsanctioned summer getaway across France. The final product of their endeavors is a ramshackle “house car” (all the better to fool the cops) that could never exist in the real world, but we go along for the ride because we like these intrepid heroes, and because Gondry gets a lot of comic mileage out of his scenario. (Even the sight of an iPhone accidentally covered in poop gets a laugh.) The film’s funniest moments come when the car “disguises” itself as a home with a simple flick of a switch, the transformation as quick and funny as a visual gag from a vintage Warner Brothers cartoon.
“Let’s face it, we’re not exactly normal.”
— Theo, Microbe and Gasoline
Daniel and Theo’s road trip putters along agreeably as we plow through some amusing vignettes: an encounter with an overprotective dentist and his “torture chamber,” a run-in with Korean hooligans which leads to a disastrous haircut for Microbe; an impromptu visit to Laura’s summer cottage; and an episode at a local fair which turns out to be the kids’ salvation. The filmmaking is less showy than usual for Gondry, which is a good fit for the laid-back material, and the movie is a lively, fun diversion for most of its running time. Inevitably though, every summer must give way to the bracing reality of autumn. “Friendship is the death of love,” Theo ruminates at one point, and as it turns out, the duo’s friendship outlasts every notion of love, even if the friendship isn’t necessarily destined to last. Microbe and Gasoline‘s energy and inspiration, along with Daniel and Theo’s road trip, conks out down the stretch, and Gondry resorts to whimsy to compensate; a plane trip that turns into a backwards-forwards, inside-out hallucination doesn’t sit too well alongside the rest of the film’s more grounded hijinks. Still, the bittersweet conclusion puts a nice capper on the affair, and carries a Gallic touch of melancholy. There is no easy rapprochement with the parents, and no escape from the depressive norms of Versailles. Instead we get a knowing little smile that summer is over, and an entirely justified sucker punch to a bully’s nose. Like we said, Gondry is all about embracing the kid in all of us, and while Microbe and Gasoline may not be a major work, its charms work us over pleasantly.
