Born in ’68

The protests of May 1968 provide students Catherine (Laetitia Casta), Yves (Yannick Renier) and Hervé (Yann Trégouët) a chance to indulge in free love. But changing mores soon catch up with their ménage à trois, leaving Catherine to bring up her two children alone in a fragmenting commune.

By the 1990s, when the kids are exploring their own sexualities, writer/directors Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau struggle to draw compelling parallels between the protests of ’68 and the fight for access to HIV drugs more than 20 years on. And though they make the most of model Casta’s beauty, she doesn’t quite cut it as the film’s central figure.

Born in ’68 is in the spirit of sweeping Italian political drama The Best of Youth, which was originally made for television; there’s a sense that this lengthy family saga might also be best enjoyed as an episodic TV drama.

Jonas Milk