[1] The naïve, innocent, and idealistic Charles, who is from the provinces and is something of a mama's boy, moves to Paris to share his uncle's extravagant apartment with his dissolute, profligate, and jaded cousin Paul while both young men attend law school.

Whereas Charles takes his studies very seriously in order to not disappoint his mother, to whom he writes daily, Paul never seems to go to lectures or open a book.

Charles loads a single bullet into one of his uncle's six-chamber revolvers, spins the cylinder, and pulls the trigger while pointing the weapon at the sleeping Paul's head.

Chabrol had planned for The Cousins to be his first film, but the high production costs ($160,000) made him decide to postpone the project and make the less-expensive Le Beau Serge first.

"[4] The unwitting murder in the end is, seemingly, inspired by "the theme of the exchange of guilt which Chabrol and Rohmer analysed in Hitchcock.

[5] Bosley Crowther commented in The New York Times that "Chabrol has more skill with the camera than he has with the pen, and his picture is more credible to the eye than it is to the skeptical mind.

But a concisive progression, fine technical aspects, and a look at innocence destroyed by the profane keeps it absorbing despite the slightly pretentious treatment at times.

"[8] Pauline Kael wrote: "The Cousins, more than any other film I can think of, deserves to be called The Lost Generation, with all the glamour and romance, the easy sophistication and quick desperation that the title suggests.

"[9] TV Guide called it "a major film of the French New Wave that provides a grim, clear-eyed look at the cynicism of youth, this is not to be missed.