Malek Bechar

What is beautiful about adolescence is that it is a time when everything is still possible. The four main characters are each conditioned by their background and environment, but they refuse to accept any predestination and to fight it. Expelled from schools, spurned by lovers, confined by identity these youngsters just keep on running, frustrated and in flames. Lonely hearts, intoxicated by music and alcohol, by the heat of minds and bodies, burn to ashes.

In Marseilles (France), skilled pizza delivery boy Daniel who drives a scooter finally has his dreams come true. He gets a taxi license. Caught by the police for a huge speed infraction, he will help Emilien, a loser inspector who can't drive, on the track of German bank robbers, so he doesn't lose his license and his dream job.

A cabdriver and a cop race to Paris to rescue a love interest and the Japanese minister of defense from kidnappers.

Cédric Kahn's "Bonheur" is the eighth episode of the 9-part Arte series "Tous les garçons et les filles de leur âge", a series of medium-length (around 1h) made-for-tv movies about teenagers. An 85-minute version of "Bonheur" has been distributed as "Trop de bonheur" (a more satisfactory version, according to the director).