Jaunt in a jalopy is one joyful ride
“Microbe & Gasoline” bears one of the hallmarks of a Michel Gondry film— a fiercely independent D.I.Y. streak — but without the French director’s annoying twee sensibility.
The semi-autobiographical film centers on a pair of 14-year-old misfits who embark on an unauthorized road trip in a homemade jalopy with a lawn-mower engine, disguised as a tiny wooden house. But its theme is not the oddness of the title characters; it’s their ordinary and quietly touching relationship.
“Microbe & Gasoline” is one of most heartfelt and simple films in years from the director of “Be Kind Rewind” and “The Green Hornet.”
In the town of Versailles, Daniel (Ange Dargent), aka Microbe, a small, artistically talented eighth-grader, becomes best friends with Théo (Théophile Baquet), aka Gasoline, a self-confident grease monkey and natural Mr. Fixit.
Their school is an ecosystem in which neither boy is able to find his place. Daniel paints and draws all day; Théo tinkers with motors and other machines in his home garage, using parts scavenged from junkyards and the streets.
Over summer vacation, the boys decide to run away in the aforementioned vehicle, which can be transformed, with the flip of a handle, into a stationary architectural structure with the size and appearance of a garden shed whenever police pass. It also doubles as a cozy camper at night, mostly because they forgot to add headlights.
The premise sounds farfetched enough to rub some viewers the wrong way. But writer-director Gondry — who has said in interviews that the character of Daniel is loosely based on him — keeps a tight rein on the off-thewall quality of the story, even when it wobbles into a pit stop in which Daniel gets an unfortunate haircut from Korean prostitutes and then runs afoul of the unscrupulous proprietor of the massage parlor/salon.
The film’s young stars have an unforced naturalness, even under the most outlandish circumstances. Dargent and Baquet are real teenagers, rather than 20-somethings. Diane Besnier, who plays Daniel’s somewhat aloof crush Laura, is also quite good in a small role.
Although the film takes place in the present, Daniel and Théo don’t use mobile phones or the internet; they find their way with paper maps. And “Microbe and Gasoline” is very much about the past.
That’s because it’s in love with love and friendship and the act of creation — of both mechanical devices and the self. “Microbe and Gasoline” doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it just might ride four of them into your heart.