Winning performances by two young lead actors anchor this darkly comic, rebellious coming-of-age story set in the suburbs of Montreal in the late 1960s.

From its opening sequence, in which a 10-year-old boy comically attempts suicide, you know this pitch-black comedy is going to stray far from safety and convention. Set in late-1960s suburban Montreal, It’s Not Me, I Swear! is an unusual tale of familial dysfunction and childhood ennui that picks up where My Life as Dog left off and goes to the next level. The story centers on Léon Doré, a young lad whose father is an early Quebecois secessionist politician and whose mother is suffocating under the burden of their blasé perfect-family existence. His brother is a slightly overweight conformist who desperately wants a normal life. But Léon is a determined social misfit who, when he’s not trying to harm himself, is doing all he can to terrorize his family and the neighbors and to generally disrupt the phony tranquility of his community. When his mother finally has enough and flies the coop, he hatches a plan with the help of Léa (an equally malcontent neighbor girl) to steal some money, run away and find her. L'Écuyer and Faucher deliver outstandingly forthright performances as the two young leads whose persistent non-conformity serves as the perfect antidote for the inanity of the adult world. (French with English subtitles) -- Eric Moore