Meteors

Lifelong friends Mika (Paul Kircher), Tony (Salif Cissé), and Dan (Idir Azougli, who earned a César Award nomination for Best Male Newcomer) have never escaped the confines of their bleak town in eastern France, and both their friendship and livelihoods are hitting a dead end. Trying to turn the tide as Dan descends deeper into chronic alcoholism and ill-conceived mischief, Mika pushes Tony, their better-off friend, to hire them at a nuclear waste storage facility. Training an eye on Saint-Dizier, his real-life hometown and site of his first short films, Hubert Charuel (Petit Paysan, Rendez-Vous 2018) and co-writer Claude Le Pape illuminate both the specific dynamics of fraught male friendships and eastern France’s controversial economic dependence on nuclear waste disposal. The imposing concrete blocks and storage facilities that dwarf Tony and Dan add an unexpected, surreal edge to this otherwise meticulously naturalistic study of rural masculinity in crisis.