In a town in northern France, teenagers sitting for the baccalaureate await the fateful date with anxiety tempered with indifference. Teachers are considering the exam as the highway to employment but the disillusioned teenagers see it more as the dead-end street to unemployment.

From puppy love to exam anxiety, all the flavors of high-school life are served in Maurice Pialat’s irresistible portrait of disaffected youth. Countering cinema’s hyper focus on Parisian student culture, Graduate First teases out the charm as well as the frustration of a provincial upbringing.