Antoine (Jean-Pierre Léaud) is now 17. He has more or less made it past the difficult adolescence portrayed in The 400 Blows. Disowned by his parents in that film, he's managed to find a job at a record factory and has a room in a boarding house. He still hangs out with Rene, his school buddy from the first film. One day when Antoine and Rene are at a concert Antoine sees a lovely girl named Colette (Marie-France Pisier) and is instantly enchanted. He approaches her and strikes up a friendship. She introduces him to her parents, who take to him as a surrogate son—but Colette's feelings are less obvious.
Antoine and Colette was originally released as part of the Anthology Film Love at Twenty. It was followed by the third film in the Antoine Doinel cycle, Stolen Kisses.
Tropes:
- all lowercase letters: The opening credits (which are actually the opening credits to the entire Love at Twenty Anthology Film) are presented this way.
- Did Not Get the Girl: Antoine, who was fighting uphill to begin with, loses out on Colette to the adult, sophisticated Albert. Her parents really like him, though.
- Dogged Nice Guy: Antoine's hanging around Colette hoping to win her affections starts to get just a wee bit stalkerish.
- Downer Ending: Ends with Antoine decisively rejected by Colette, who is dating an older man.
- Flashback: With a Stock Footage clip from The 400 Blows of Antoine and Rene smoking in Rene's bedroom.
- Idiosyncratic Wipe: Uses a peculiar wipe in which the screen shrinks to a smaller rectangle centering on one part of the image, like Antoine's face. Then the rectangle disappears, then the process reverses itself, showing us the next scene.
- Love Triangle: Poor Antoine doesn't really have a chance in the Colette competition, going up against the older, taller, handsomer Albert.
- Mythology Gag: Antoine has a painted picture in his room of the second-most-famous shot in The 400 Blows: the scene in the prison cell, where he pulls his turtleneck over his nose.
- Name and Name: Antoine and Colette
- Narrator: Heard occasionally throughtout. In the opening scene the narrator explains that Antoine got sent back to the reformatory after the escape that ended The 400 Blows, but was released after a psychologist took an interest in him, and is now supporting himself with a job at a record company.
