A film that concerns itself with the issue of residents without documentation in France, Les Main en l'Air has the good taste not to besiege us with didactic speech-making, and approaches the subject from a thoroughly human angle, through a retrospective account of a touching and melancholy friendship between a twelve-year-old French boy and a girl of Chechen culture who are beginning to understand each other as more than chums. Alternating between insouciance and gravity, play and fear, Romain Goupil's film creates wonders with its scenes of secret meetings of a group of young schoolmates, full of freshness and nostalgia, thanks to well-written dialog and appealing comedy.
