A remarkable character study that many can relate to (gay or straight)

The problem of this movie is in huge inconsistencies between the characters from the summer period of time and after Matthieu's suicide attempt.

Pierre is introcuded as a prick that attacks Cedric in the club and then wanders around the town looking for him to beat him up even more. Then at the end Pierre is presented as an angel out of nowhere with the obvious suggestion to the viewer he would be a better partner for Matthieu. The worst part of this scene is when Pierre tells how Cedric told him to chose between him and his girlfriend. It's an obvious comparsion to how Cedric wanted Matthieu to chose between him and his faimly, yet it fails completly. Telling somone to chose between two relationship is by no means 'evil/bad', yet the movie tries to say it was and that Cedric is the bad guy and these two are the 'victims' of the relationships with him.

Another huge insoncistency is Cedric shown having genuinely great time with Matthieu's mom and aunt, with absolutely no hint of irritation, boredom or any negative emotion towards his family yet at the end Matthieu says they didn't come back to Pornichet the following summer because Cedric didn't want to see Matthieu's family.

Most importantly, the movie tries to blame Cedric's one-time infidelity for Matthieu's suicide attempt. Not as the sole reason, but definitely as the most important one. While this is not unrealistic by any means, it does seem realistic in the case of these two characters. Matthieu is not blindly in love with Cedric, neither hugely/completly under his influence or too much attatched to him to the point it would be logical why he would attempt suicide after Cedric cheats on him. Through the course of the movie, Matthieu stands up to Cedric more than on one occasion, especially in the beggining where he doesn't want Cedric to even talk to him because someone might see them together. It's Cedric that actually looks to be more in love, that's how the movie presents it. Until Cedric brings up the topic of Matthieu's departure to Paris at the end of summer, Matthieu's doesn't even seem to be bothered by it and plans to leave.

Matthieu says to the cat its his 'prince charming' which tells the viewer that's what he wants, but that's not what is shown in the movie. He's not delusional during the summer. He says to his mother fully aware if his relationship with Cedric doesn't work out, he will finish the year in Nantes and then just come back to Paris. Neither he's bothered at all when Cedric tells him he used to be a whore. The imagenary of Cedric being the bottom during sex doesn't help either. Obviously, sexual role does not determine who's actually dominant in a relationship, but in the movie world image is more powerful and after seeing Matthieu being a "power top" towards Cedric, it's hard to view him to be such extremly delicate. All these inconsistencies make it look unrealistic Cedric's one-time infidelity would push Matthieu to attempt suicide. Breaking up with Cedric sure, that would be expected. But not such an extreme reaction.

Obviously that wasn't the case, but the way the movie is presented makes it look like it was first suppoused to be summer romance coming-out love story and only after that written the director decided to make it a 'deeper' movie and stitched suicide-break-up part onto it. The pairing of the characters and how well it develops through the summer, including super-easy coming-out moment (in comparsion to other movies and real life) leaves no room for the viewers to such a bad ending of their relationship.

And that is the problem of this movie. The way the movie presents the ideal summer romance between the two of them leaves no room for sad end of it. It's one thing to leave out details for the audience to fill themselves. It's another to leave out the entire middle part of the story between the two characters. In this case it's the middle part where Matthieu's depression become more serious but without seeing anything of it, it doesn't connect with the ending at all.

In many ways, this movie is similar to Shelter. But Shelter combined serious family drama with breezy romance much better, making the characters consistient and the story logical. There are things left out of Shelter to the viewers' interpretation too, but on a acceptable scale. Presque Rien leaves out too much, presenting the same set of characters completly differently in the two timelines.

Sorry for my english

It's what the original poster said. Mathieu attempted suicide because of a clinical depression that was pre-existent before his love affair with Cedric. It was held at bay by the giddy feelings of new love but he was struggling all along. He was hurting over the death of his infant brother and his mother's depression which colored all of their days. His sister was struggling too -- which Mathieu chooses to see as "bitchiness." He doesn't want to be honest about his own pain either. This is an untenable situation. Mathieu doesn't attempt suicide because of Cedric's infidelity (but Cedric may have strayed because of the distance between the two, a distance created by Mathieu's encroaching depression. Not right but quite possible.) To say that there was no sign of depression until after Cedric? Um...what about the dead bird? Keeping the dead bird? Burning the bird with a cigarette? The next time we see Mathieu with an animal, he's bathing and feeding it. Hopefully, that's a sign that he's coming to relate to life again.