While Daniels are using and abusing Michel Gondry tropes over in Swiss Army Man, Michel Gondry is just doing his low-fi thing here in Microbe and Gasoline, a straight white male version of Heavenly Creatures, without the confused lesbianism or Peter Jackson horror. Daniel (Ange Dargent), aka Microbe, is a wealthy underdeveloped teenage male bullied at high school. Theo (Theophile Baquet) is an impoverished teenager from a junkyard family who possesses a preternatural creativity in all things mechanical. Together, they form an obsession with each other that leads to the creation of a house car for a summer road trip where they come of age.

Microbe and Gasoline is no more or less transcendent than that description. Low key and laid back to a fault, Gondry coasts purely on his naturalistic whimsy rather than creating a heightened experience. Gondry spends a good long chunk of film spinning his wheels on the teens’ creative energy before sending Daniel and Theo off on their journey of maturity.

Gondry is merely presenting a fantasy portrait of teen boyhood affected by his twee sensibility but completely unadorned by complications. It’s personal and unassuming, letting the high concept central conceit do all the work. Two kids dealing with a harsh life decide to create their own home and family to tour the country side of life? It practically writes itself.

It’s fine. If this is your type of movie, it will be great; if this isn’t your type of movie it will be slightly insufferable. Gondry makes no efforts to transcend his techniques, and that’s absolutely ok. It’s kind of just what it is: a hangout movie that does nothing but hang out.