Co-writer and director Marine Atlan gives viewers La Gradiva and is showing us a nightmare scenario – Gen-Z teens! In particular, two French teachers take their students to Pompeii to study Latin science and art with independence. At times, they go where they’re not supposed to, but during ‘work’, they go to volcanoes and museums. Those places bring out something in those teens, a sense of escape from their dreaded college application acceptances. The film gives its twenty cast moments their times to shine but it seems like there’s THE main character. That character is Toni Lorme (Colas Quignard) the class clown but there’s more to him than just that.

Most of us olds see Gen Z-ers as outliers through stereotypes but this film dispels most of those. Yes, some of them are turning Conservative, but I remember Conservative teenagers when I was also a teenager. There’s one scene here showing, presumably, a future Le Pen voter debating his peers and teachers quietly observing. Observation is Madame Mercier’s (Antonia Buresi) favourite thing to do when she’s not wrangling teenagers with free will. Again, these teens are just like we were, some of them even get lucky like James (Mitia Capellier-Audat). La Gradiva shows love, desire, friendship, jealousy, complimentary and conflicting emotions that the film shows under unvarnished Italian sunlight. The film, for the most part, puts that adulthood in obvious opposition to adolescence, presenting it as a state ripe for education. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aa5DYk_iqto