The story revolves around two young teenagers, a fifteen-year-old English boy named Paul Harrison (Sean Bury) and a fourteen-year-old French girl named Michelle La Tour (Anicée Alvina). Paul's mother left when he was young, and now he's stuck with his rich, self-absorbed father and his soon-to-be step-mother and step-brother with whom he has nothing in common. Michelle is likewise feeling alienated from the world: her mother died when she was born, and her father, who she loved dearly, recent passed away, and now she has to live with a cousin she barely knows and cares about even less.

Paul and Michelle have a cute meeting at the Paris zoo where they exchange glances over the polar bear pit, then finally start talking in front of the monkeys. They start meeting together every day, and soon they have developed a friendship. One day they decide to stay out together all night, and the next day they find they don't want to go home.

They decide to leave Paris without telling anyone, and travel to a small town in the French countryside where Michelle and her father had a cottage. There they set up a home, and try their hand at adulthood. Their friendship slowly develops into sexual love, which is constantly beat on us by Elton John's theme song played over and over on the soundtrack ("Isn't it strange how young lovers start as friends . . .").

Soon enough, Michelle is pregnant, and instead of having an intelligent discussion about the ramifications of this, they just quickly decide that it is the best thing that has ever happened to them. When the baby is born, they refuse to go to a doctor, opting instead to have it at home by the fireplace, reading the instructions out of a book. This is actually the best scene in the film because it is the only one that plays like something in real life and not out of a storybook.

The subject matter of "Friends" doesn't deserve the treatment it gets from screenwriters Vernon Harris and Jack Russell. Some people would start gagging at the very thought of a romantic movie about two cute teenagers who try to play adult, but I think it has great potential. Some good subjects are briskly glossed over in "Friends," such as the matter of eating and making money and assuming responsibility. There are a few scenes where Paul and Michelle lament their lack of dinner, but Paul always manages to find a job in the end, whether that be working at a bull fight or in a rice field.

The problem is that the movie never dares to dig into its subject, and really explore what this scenario would be like. It barely gives any thought to what Paul's father and Michelle's cousin are going through in their absence. For all they know, Paul and Michelle were kidnapped. Michelle explains that her cousin doesn't care what happens to her, so it's okay to run away, and the movie gives us one scene of Paul's father talking to the police, and that's it.

And then there's the problem of how the movie treats it two main characters. Just because the kids are trying to play adult, it deal with them as if they were, infusing them with a maturity and worldliness that they simply wouldn't have at this stage of their lives. The kids act young in the way they walk and talk and first make love, but their reactions to situations are either adultlike or simply unrealistic for any human being, no matter what age. Do they ever start thinking that they are throwing away their carefree teenage years? Not here. Do they ever feel the need to be with other people besides each other? Nope.

Throughout all this ordeal, Paul and Michelle only have one fight, and it isn't logical enough to make me think that it was anything more than the screenwriters thinking, "Gee, there's so much lovely cuddling in this movie, there needs to be at least one argument." Of course, the fight lasts two minutes, and is resolved by Michelle chasing Paul down, calling his name into the wind, and the two of them running back into each other's arms against a sunset.

Not much of this can be blamed on the two young actors, who do their best with limited dialogue and a lot of hugging and kissing. Sean Bury never quite comes off as the troubled teenager the movie wants us to see him as, even though his first scene involves stealing a car. Anicée Alvina is an absolutely beautiful young actress with the promise of real talent, and she almost transcends this mush with her looks alone. Unfortunately, it's not enough.

The film was directed by Lewis Gilbert, who has had a strange career consisting of bad movies like this one and its sequel "Paul and Michelle," three of the lamest James Bond movies, and good movies like "Greengage Summer" and "Alfie." Here, he pours on the sentiment by the bucketload, framing all the loving scenes with pastoral shots of the French countryside and wild horses running along the edge of a lake. What this movie needs is a few less flowery fields, and a few good doses of reality. Otherwise, it's just fluff.

Overall Rating: (1.5)