Rod Paradot, left, and Benoît Magimel in Standing Tall (Cohen Media Group)

 Last year, Emmanuelle Bercot was on a roll at the Cannes Film Festival. She starred in fellow actress/filmmaker Maïwenn’s histrionic My King, for which she won the Best Actress prize, tying with Carol’s Rooney Mara, and her fourth feature film, Standing Tall, opened the fest. Among the press corps, there was talk that this selection was an attempt by the programmers to open the door a little more to women directors for an event that leaned toward veteran, and overwhelming male, filmmakers. In fact, Maïwenn was one of two women represented in the 2015 competition. (The other was Valérie Donzelli, for the inert incest drama Marguerite & Julien.) It should be noted that there were many noteworthy films directed by women elsewhere in the festival, such as the Oscar-nominated Mustang and Ida Panahandeh’s Iranian kitchen sink noir from Iran, Nahid.

The inclusion of Bercot’s straightforward and absorbing cri de coeur is not tokenism or a well-intended attempt at diversity. It was perhaps the strongest film by a French filmmaker there, and that’s also considering the Palme d’Or winner, Dheepan. Both films share a gritty sense of realism, though they examine different layers of modern French society: Standing Tall centers almost microscopically on a volatile 15-year-old boy on the wrong side of the law (a juvie, in 1955 parlance), while Dheepan follows a Tamil immigrant’s rocky assimilation in Paris. Though it is an earnest film, its tone shifts gears in the last half hour and becomes a shoot-em-up thriller.

On the other hand, Bercot’s empathetic and clear-eyed film has a consistency of purpose. She and co-writer Marcia Romano present a pungent portrait of a young adult, with certain recognizable traits of a teen at-risk credibly woven into the narrative.

The film begins with a prologue of sorts as a six-year-old Malony is left in a judge’s office after his mother has given up custody and stormed out. Nearly 10 years later, the boy is back at home living with his mom and sullenly appearing before the same magistrate, a firm observer of character played by Catherine Deneuve. Malony has begun stealing cars—his mother joins him on hotwired joyrides down Dunkerque—and he has also been charged with assault. Even before authorities, the ever-cocky kid always insists on getting his way; the film is drenched in testosterone.

There’s no father figure in sight (Malony’s father died when he was four), and his mother, Séverine (Sara Forestier), barely 30, if that, is easily overwhelmed by the demands of taking care of Malony and his younger brother, holding a job, and finding her next rush or relationship. Malony has taken on the role of caretaker/husband. On the surface, Séverine may come across as a shrill, headache-inducing stereotype, with her oily, uncombed hair, her Juicy Couture knockoffs, and her damaged teeth. But the film establishes her bond with her son; it’s not a family without affection—when she’s off drugs and lucid—though it’s doubtful that she has actually ever told him that she loves him.

The focus is less on crime and rebellion and more on the question of whether Malony will become responsible for his actions. In doing away with some clichés of movies about angry young men, ubiquitous classical music (Bach and Schubert) is substituted for the more ubiquitous hip-hop, which has a refreshingly calming effect amid all the rancor. Only in one instance does the story line veer toward a slightly melodramatic moment.

In depicting Malony’s small breakthroughs and major setbacks, the film is light on exposition and heavy on confrontations: Malony’s dossier is constantly under review by the judge. The script’s outline is made up of compact moments of decisions. For every positive step the young man takes, there are several flat-on-the-face stumbles and little to no accountability or remorse on his part—initially.

Bercot unobtrusively films the action as it unfolds, allowing scenes to build with hand-held (though smooth) camerawork and without taking shortcuts as she works toward the resolution. Though the pace is unhurried, an undulating dose of adrenaline courses through the set pieces. The payoff is substantial, considering the volcanic and thoroughly credible performance of lead actor Rod Paradot, 18 when he made his film debut here—he looks much younger. (He was discovered at a vocational high school, where he was studying carpentry.)

Pardot is so good that you forget that he shares screen time with Deneuve or Benoît Magimel, as Malony’s world-weary counselor. It’s an impressive achievement to have a weighty film rest upon the shoulders of a newcomer. He understandably won the César Award, the French equivalent of the Oscar, for most promising actor.