Les mauvais garçons (2020)

February – The News: Cyprien, Guillaume, and Victor have been close friends since school. They meet every Friday at the Les Milles et Une Nuit diner. One day, Victor tells his friends that he and his girlfriend, Nora, are expecting a child. Cyprien and Guillaume congratulate him. April – Victor’s Cousin’s Housewarming Party: The three friends plan to meet at their regular diner before going together to Victor’s cousin’s housewarming party. Victor does not show up, and Cyprien and Guillaume do not want to go without him, since they do not know anyone else at the party. Guillaume tells Cyprien that he went with Victor and Nora to the ultrasound that morning and saw that they are expecting a boy. The couple themselves do not want to know the baby’s sex before the birth. Cyprien is first bewildered, then depressed, and feels left out. They set off for Victor’s cousin’s place, and Cyprien tells Guillaume that the previous evening he had a Tinder date, but the woman turned out to be a single mother of a toddler. To ease the tension, Cyprien claimed he was also a father, but had to admit the lie almost immediately and was thrown out of her apartment. He tells Guillaume that he really does have a three-year-old son—the imaginary child he and his great love, Madeleine, never had, but had wanted together. Cyprien and Madeleine broke up some time ago. Cyprien no longer feels like going to a housewarming party, and Guillaume goes home too. June – NBA Finals, Game 5: The friends plan to watch Game 5 of the NBA Finals, with the Golden State Warriors playing the Toronto Raptors. Victor, however, does not show up because he had to make an unscheduled trip to the pharmacy for Nora. Cyprien has grown a beard, and Guillaume is surprised, since he has not seen him for a while. Cyprien initially pretends he spent a week hiking, but then admits he conducted a social experiment: he shut himself away in his apartment and neither answered the phone nor went online, to find out when people would miss him. It was only on the eleventh day that someone rang his doorbell: Madeleine was standing outside, and the two got back together. Guillaume is less fortunate: he is trying to get together with a former classmate, Claire Kadan, whom he ran into again at a supermarket in April, but she keeps postponing their date. September – The Nautilus Reopens: The three friends’ get-together at Milles et Une Nuit falls through again because Victor is absent without explanation. Ahmed, the owner, hints that he may have to close the diner because it does not have enough customers. When Cyprien tries to play new music on Guillaume’s phone, Guillaume receives a message from Claire Kadan telling him to leave her alone once and for all. Guillaume is angry that Cyprien has read the message, but lets him read the entire chat history. Cyprien reads the messages aloud and comments on them. It becomes clear that Claire has been rejecting Guillaume since April, but he has not let up. As the chat history grows increasingly stalker-like, Guillaume tries to snatch the phone from Cyprien, and they get into a scuffle. A message to both of them makes them stop: Victor and Nora’s daughter, Simone, has been born prematurely and is doing well. The couple cannot wait to show them their daughter. Cyprien and Guillaume make up; Cyprien confesses that he has definitively broken up with Madeleine. The two go to the hospital at dawn to welcome Simone.