This is a charming little film made in the agreeable French tradition of Vadim, Techine, Kieslowski, et al, in which the film itself reflects the director's adoration for its pretty young star. In this case we have Director Benoît Jacquot adoring Judith Godrèche, who plays a poor but principled 17-year-old Parisian girl disenchanted with her life, in particular with the choices she has in males. Her boyfriend tells her she should sleep with somebody ugly. Just why isn't clear. He is referred to as 'whatshisname.' She meets an interesting man, Alphonse, played by Marchel Bozonnet, but he is too old for her and, at any rate, still enamored of another. And certainly she doesn't want her mother's lover, referred to as 'Sugardad,' who is in his sixties.
Godrèche herself is as natural and unself-conscience as a child. Dressed mostly in thin house dresses that cling lightly to her body, she displays the clear eyes, the clean jaw line and sculptured arms of youthful innocence. The camera adores her face and stays with her throughout. Clearly she is good and good to look at, but I would not say she is as enchanting as Krzysztof Kieslowski's Irène Jacob (La Double vie de Véronique (1991); Trois Couleurs: Rouge (1994)) nor as talented as Juliette Binoche in Andre Techine's Rendez-Vous (1985). And of course not nearly as sexy as Brigitte Bardot in Roger Vadim's And God Created Woman (1957).
But comparisons are odious. This is a good film in its own right. The treatment suggests a short story from a literary journal, original, with quiet, unexpected tableaux of daily life leaving one to ponder. The climax appears without one's knowing it until the film begins the closing credits and then one understands what happened. There is a dark symbolic element throughout suggesting the bondage to the material world that comes when a girl is no longer a child.
Vietnamese-French actor Hai Truhong Tu is excellent in a small part as Godrèche's Chinese friend.
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