If you can buy into the premise, good luck to you. I didn't.

The screenplay is marred by clumsy foreshadowing and other contrivances, but Tchin and Sciamma have tapped into something genuine: the deep confusion at the dawn of sexuality.

Age in Being 17 comes in awkward bursts, and yet the film moves sublimely. Director Tchin, 73 years old, is wise beyond his years.

Without a wasted word or shot, the film is a master work that offers a complex portrait of two teens and their families as the boys deal with both coming out and coming of age.