FRENCH CONNECTION

A GLOOMY YOUNG man, Alexis (Félix Lefebvre), tells us he’s obsessed with death. Someone’s got to be buried, and the movie makes no secret of who that is: David (Benjamin Voisin), friend and first love. If not for its grim departures from the feverish, sun-specked lust of gay youth, François Ozon’s adaptation of the YA novel Dance on My Grave might be easily mistaken for a Call Me by Your Name hand-me-down: the flirtations, the dance scenes, the sculpturally perfect bodies of its central pair. It’s all pleasurably, numbingly familiar but for the lovely sparks of interest generated by its cast (including Valeria Bruni Tedeschi as David’s mom).

And the grim stuff does make a difference. Ozon’s credible handling of the film’s twinned stories invisibly pulls us through Summer of 85’ s romantic departures and quiet crises. Between the too-many nods to New Order and the beauty of France, you really do start to wonder where it’s all going — even if, long before the end, you already sort of know.