Charlotte for Ever

A writer played by Serge Gainsbourg, is asking his agent for money which he needs because he is broke. His agent argues with him, and asks for the script he is supposed to be working on. After some prolonged begging, he finally gets the cash after promising to finish the script.

His daughter Charlotte is used as his on screen offspring here for a sense of reality. They argue constantly about her mother's death in a car accident in which she blames her father for causing. We get repeated flashbacks of a Porsche crashing into a fuel tanker and a fiery explosion. In between, old Serge drinks, has sex with various prostitutes, and reads from classic literature, including Lolita, to his fifteen year old daughter. He has inappropriate behavior with her, including some brief nudity of young Charlotte. The film goes nowhere, it just drifts from scene to scene with no direction. Why Mr. Gainsbourg would subject his young daughter to this subject matter at fifteen is beyond me. I was bored by Charlotte Forever.

The story evolves around a failed writer, who tries to get his comeback going again, while he sits at home and drinks with his obese friend, both mumbling on and on about a bunch of stuff that nobody really gives a rats ass about. He is a very repulsive and uninteresting character, who wears a filthy black glove to allegedly disguise his badly burned hand (but this doesn't really lend anything to the plot at all), which he apparently got while trying to save his wife, who died in a terrible car-accident, which we see in numerous flash-backs. This also lends nothing to the plot at all, but contains a well-filmed, great explosion, that was just completely wasted in this film.

Meanwhile, his teenage daughter Charlotte (also Gainsbourg's daughter in real life), just prances half-naked around the house, sometimes bringing her skanky friends along, whom her father for some reason is able to seduce and have sex with, and they all dance to his music throughout the film.. wow...just wow.

Not quite sure what to make of this film, but I do know that all those reviewers who gave it 10/10 must either be die-hardcore fans of Gainsbourg, or just old horny guys who love seeing scantily-clad teenage girls dancing and stripping to 80's synth-pop music.. that's ALL this movie is about. The acting is horrible, the story is almost non-existent, and the music gets very repetitive.. fast! I don't think I've ever seen such pretentious crap get so much praise before.. AVOID! I can only give this movie 2 stars. One for the exploding cars, and one for Charlotte shaking her ass to her father's music. If only the film was like that for 90 minutes, it would've been a masterpiece.

Serge Gainsbourg, a very talented musician, a little bit crazy and the daddy of the shameless little girl, Charlotte Gainsbourg. As a film director and actor, Serge Gainsbourg's career is very controversial. He had a few interesting roles when he was young, but in old age he failed completely. This film has absolutely no artistic value of any kind. It's very very annoying, super-boring and stupid. Charlotte Gainsbourg and two other teenage girls show their breasts just for the sake of showing their breasts. The song with the same title as the movie, repeated indefinitely, is not a success either.

Charlotte Forever is not fantastic it is Super Fantastic in the way it draws you in, not mentioning Charlotte's nude scene alone is enough reason to purchase this movie, he nude scene is above Super Fantastic in the eyes of this simple viewer, I may not be an expert as some but I do buy movies and watch them with my mind and eyes open. I have watched this movie 3 times and it is great simple as that, not a 10 but great. There is deep disturbing feelings from Charlotte's dad Serge Gainsbourg as he played out his role, it appeared to me he did not have to act at all to be in the state he acted out, also seemed to me this simple viewer, he took over the scene's a number of times but Charlotte being a true actress did not give in and acted as good if not better than any 15 year old I have seen to date. Get this movie by all means! That's all I have to say bout that.

Purview

Maybe I've missed the point or perhaps you have to be some kind of pretentious art house aficionado to understand the point of this movie. Let's see some guy washed up in his career has reached a mid life crisis and has hit the bottle hard (are you following me so far?), his raison d'être appears to be his daughter Charlotte (Charlotte Gainsbourg)who doesn't seem that balanced herself. Rather like walking through mud in the middle of a storm, you're treated to his angst and insecurity and her angst and insecurity throw in some nudity as well (this is a French film after all) and some miscellaneous characters and that's your plot. The acting is fine, this film is disturbing and deeply depressing and is best avoided unless you really want to be entertained this way