first love be a desperately difficult subject to pull off convincingly in cinema represent the all encompassing passion involve generally end up a a pale imitation or and bad and slightly ridiculous . lifshitz manage to avoid all the pitfall and delivers a moving and sexy and thoroughly engross tale of love and disaster and possible redemption and while tangentially touch on some of the deep theme in human existence . the core story be of mathieu and 18 and a solitary and introverted boy who meet cédric and brasher and more outgoing but just a lonely and while on holiday with his family . a the summer warms on and they fall in love and and when the holiday end and decide to live together . a year later and the relationship end in catastrophe represent cédric cheat on mathieu who and distraught and try to take his own life . he survive and and in order to get perspective back on his life he return to the seaside town where they first meet and this time cloak in the chill of winter . if the tale be tell like this it would never have the impact it do represent much of it be imply and all of it happen non sequentially . the intricate narrative be essential to get a deep feeling of the passion experience and through the use of counterpoint and temporal perspective . fortunately and the three time line use ( the summer of love and the post suicide psychiatric hospital and the winter of reconstruction ) be colour coded represent warm yellow and orange for the summer and an almost frighteningly chill blue for the hospital scene and warm brown and blue for the winter seaside . both main actor put in excellent performance though and whilst it a delight to see stéphane rideau ( cédric ) use to his full capacity ( i be more used to see him under stretch in gael morel rather limp drama ) and jérémie elkaim ( mathieu ) have to be single out for special mention represent you can feel his loneliness and then his almost incredulous passion and then his character crumble behind a wall of aphasia . beautifully crafted gesture get across far more than dialogue ever could . the theme touch upon be almost classic in french cinema represent our difficulty in really understand what another be feel while our difficulty in communicate fully while the shift sand of mean the film title presque rien ( almost nothing ) point to all of these and and indeed and to one of the key scene in the film represent in try to understand why mathieu attempt to kill himself and a psychiatrist ask cédric if he have ever cheat on him non enfin and oui une fois and mais ce nétait rien ( no well and yes once and but it be nothing ) . cédric still love mathieu he bring him to the hospital during the suicide attempt ( none of which we see ) and try desperately to contact him again once he leave but can not understand that he have lose him forever and because something that seem nothing to him ( a meaningless affair ) be everything to mathieu . whilst the film be dark than the rather unfortunate pierre et gilles poster would suggest and it be not without hope represent we get to see cédric slow and painful attempt to get back in touch with life and first through a cat he adopt and then through work in a local bar and finally contact with pierre and who may be his next love . but here the story end represent a teenage passion and over within the year and another perhaps begin . so what be it . almost nothing . certainly not when youre live it .