Tender French coming-of-age movie about a Jewish family opens in UK

Just an Illusion arrives in cinemas this week having made big money at the box office in France. It is a warm and nostalgic crowd-pleaser centred on a Jewish family living in the suburbs of Paris in 1985. The primary focus is Vincent, the younger of two brothers, in the leadup to his bar mitzvah day. One is struck, when watching the film, by what Stephen King refers to as “the ecstasy of perfect recognition”. And, as with King’s Stand by Me, this is a work that seems to perfectly capture what it feels like to be 12 years old.

Unsurprisingly, this autobiographical film is inspired by the adolescence of filmmakers Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache and one can feel the emotional truth in every scene. It is a film about love, music and assimilation and is absolutely not to be missed – by Jews and gentiles alike.

The writer-directors are in their 50s now and, with teenage children of their own, felt compelled to reveal a little more of their own formative years. Combining genuine quality with mass appeal is rare but it can happen (see Seinfeld and The Beatles). Toledano and Nakache achieved this trick with The Intouchables back in 2011 but perhaps it is even more surprising in 2026 with a tender coming-of-age story about a Jewish immigrant family.

Just an Illusion is not mawkish or sentimental but instead manages to convey the feeling of falling in love with music and a person for the first time. The writing process began with the creative partners sharing anecdotes from their past and writing them down, long before such stories were fictionalised or embellished for the screenplay. The specific is the universal and the level of detail in the mise-en-scène means something is bound to chime with each and every audience member, whether they came of age in the 1980s or not.

One aspect that Jewish viewers in particular might relate to is the way in which the family dynamics are shaped as much by arguments as by tenderness. The brothers at the centre of the film argue one minute and embrace the next while the mother and father, expertly played by Camille Cottin and Louis Garrel, were inspired by the filmmakers’ own parents as well as those depicted in Italian comedies of yesteryear. This combination of realism and humour ensures Just an Illusion remains immensely relatable even as the laughs fly thick and fast.

Vincent, the bar mitzvah boy at the movie’s heart, is an amalgam of the filmmakers. The pair met as teenagers on summer camp and bonded over a shared love of the films of Woody Allen. Toledano’s parents were immigrants from Morocco while Nakache’s parents were born in Algeria and such similar backgrounds have ensured they are entirely simpatico and ideal collaborators. Almost 40 years later both their fathers died during the production of Just an Illusion so this love letter to their teenage years is dedicated to the memories of both men.

It is notable that the Jewish elements are never laid on too thick and the parents are primarily concerned with unemployment, transport strikes and the digital transition while the teenage boys are chiefly preoccupied with music and girls (as teenage boys are wont to be). For many Jews, religion can feel like a low hum in the background of their everyday lives and it comes as something of a shock when a rabbi arrives at the family’s door, but it begins to become a central theme as the bar mitzvah draws ever closer. For a large proportion of our people, Judaism is never more significant than in the weeks and months leading up to a bar mitzvah.

In a sense, the entire film is about the awkward transition from childhood to adulthood that is symbolically represented by a bar mitzvah. Though the film is set in 1985, Toledano and Nakache are never reactionary. Just an Illusion might have nostalgic undertones but it never loses sight of the more difficult elements of the era for the country and its people. They are not saying things were better then, instead preferring to show life as it was.

Simon Boublil, in his film debut, is extraordinary in the lead as Vincent. He has to convey childlike worries about his parents’ relationship in early scenes and offer a glimpse of the man he will become by the film’s denouement as his own relationship progresses. Almost 2,000 young actors auditioned, since the filmmakers knew the entire project hinged on casting the right person. Vincent gradually comes to the realisation that his parents are flawed people, like us all, and Boublil’s slow metamorphosis is perfectly pitched.

The stakes are never particularly high but the thing about adolescence is that everything feels as though it is life or death. The filmmakers do not add inciting incidents to up the ante and the family’s troubles are those of everyday life: relationships, money, parenting and the like. Our concerns are those of Vincent because of how expertly he has been written, directed and performed. When we arrive at his bar mitzvah day and the credits roll, it is hard not to feel as though we have spent a couple of hours in the company of friends. Just an illusion, perhaps, but cinema cannot offer much more than that.

Just an Illusion is showing in cinemas now