Vic, a thirteen-year-old girl who recently moved to Paris, is filled with hopeful expectations for her new life. Her father François, a dentist, and mother Françoise, an illustrator, are terribly busy, leaving her great-grandmother Poupette to serve as Vic's adviser in all matters of life. One night, at the invitation of her classmate, Vic attends a party—the titular la boum—where she falls in with a boy named Mathieu. While Vic learns about the agony and ecstasy of life through her first love, a significant change is on the horizon for her parents’ relationship.

Selected out of 700 candidates at an audition, the teenage Sophie Marceau steered La Boum to become one of the biggest hits in 1982, and she went on to become one of France’s biggest stars. The film also features the ballad Reality, which grew into one of the most recognizable songs for a generation of lovesick teenagers.

Claude Pinoteau (1925–2012) worked as assistant director for directors such as Jean Cocteau, Max Ophüls, Jean-Pierre Melville, René Clément, René Clair, his brother Jack Pinoteau, among others over a long career. He was known for working with up-and-coming actors such as Sophie Marceau and Isabel Adjani. After the success of La Boum in 1980, Pinoteau directed the sequel La Boum 2 in 1982.