Théophile Baquet, left, and Ange Dargent in Microbe & Gasoline (Film Society of Lincoln Center)

If you’ve seen one movie about teenagers, have you seen ’em all? The rituals of youth flouting authority, wallowing in angst, and struggling to appease frustrated sex drives can all start to look the same after a while, but directors can’t stay away from them. Michel Gondry is one auteur with a fixation on adolescence, although more concentrated on flights of fancy than outright rebellion. In the road tale Microbe and Gasoline, which had its U.S. premiere at the New York Film Festival, he exercises his familiar preoccupations with kids and low-tech gadgetry, establishing a nice lived-in rhythm and adding some idiosyncratic flair to the teen movie genre.

Microbe (Ange Dargent), a boy of about 13, is the butt of jokes among his schoolmates because of his small size and nerdish mien. He attaches himself to a new student, Gasoline (Théophile Baquet), nicknamed for the smell of the motorized contraptions he ingeniously builds and rides. Both are fed up with their classes, their suburban hometown of Versailles, and their humdrum families. Microbe copes with a sad sack mom and a smothering home environment, while Gasoline hides the distress caused by a pair of grim hoarder parents right out of Sweeney Todd. It’s not long before the two plan a Hardy Boys-style escape, with the visionary Gasoline building a rickety little motorized cottage and Microbe playing along as a sort of loyal Sancho Panza. Adventures beckon as the pair putter into the French countryside.

And there’s fun to be had, although uneven and sometimes with a  shaggy pace. The boys encounter lackadaisical cops and a crazed dentist. In search of a haircut, Microbe ambles into an Asian whorehouse; later, Asian bad guys run after the boys in a scene that recalls the more regrettable kind of Wes Anderson chase routine. A political note is introduced and a wistful attempt at romance, neither especially convincing, and Gondry indulges his low-fi fetish with a contrivance where a cell phone gets scatological short shrift. Luckily, a sense of playful improvisation and living by one’s wits keeps our heroes’ hijinks from grating overmuch.

Amid the rather random carrying on, Gondry slides in some deft emotional shading. The director has created a fascinating character in the driven tinkerer Gasoline. Grandiose yet drily realistic, he’s a charmer who does not believe in love, a leader who knows when to encourage Microbe and when to motivate by withholding affection. The attachment between the two boys deepens convincingly as Microbe gains confidence and courage in Gasoline’s company. Played by the bashfully good-looking Baquet, Gasoline is a brave and likeable swashbuckler, which makes his fate at the movie’s end shocking and deflating.

Another surprising pull on the heartstrings comes from Audrey Tautou, almost unrecognizable as Microbe’s dowdily depressive mother. Tautou has toned down her gamine cuteness and lined her face with worry as a spiritual seeker who longs to reach her son. In a film where busy capering can fight against genuine emotion, Tautou’s performance hits a poignant—and adult—grace note.

Plucky like the lads at its center and ramshackle as the craft they steer, Microbe & Gasoline wanders free and ends on a downbeat note followed by a hint of triumph to come. Along the way it’s brought a little wistful, antic cheer to the teenage oeuvre.