Chicago – “Young & Beautiful” may have people rethinking the phrase, “Oh, to be young and beautiful again.” Well, maybe the “young” part, since we seldom don’t hear lamentations of the loss of beauty. Here’s a film that reminds us that wisdom not only comes with age, but also with mistakes.
It also serves as a reminder that in our youth, we often get stuck in irreversibly bad patterns that hurt ourselves and the ones who love us. Writer/director Francois Ozon’s latest leaves us to decide whether or not the young and beautiful protagonist has any regret for her rash and vacant erotic adventures.
Rating: 3.5/5.0
The film opens on a teenage girl relaxing topless on a beach in France, while a younger boy peeps through binoculars from the tree line above her. She is seventeen year-old Isabelle (Marine Vacth) and he is her curious brother, Victor (Fantin Ravat...
It also serves as a reminder that in our youth, we often get stuck in irreversibly bad patterns that hurt ourselves and the ones who love us. Writer/director Francois Ozon’s latest leaves us to decide whether or not the young and beautiful protagonist has any regret for her rash and vacant erotic adventures.
Rating: 3.5/5.0
The film opens on a teenage girl relaxing topless on a beach in France, while a younger boy peeps through binoculars from the tree line above her. She is seventeen year-old Isabelle (Marine Vacth) and he is her curious brother, Victor (Fantin Ravat...
- 5/20/2014
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
Only French cinema could get away with Jeune & Jolie. Beneath its stylish, sexy glow lies an essential absurdity and obtuseness
François Ozon's fervent and well-acted drama about a 17-year-old girl exploring her sexuality by becoming a high-class call girl is very watchable … and entirely ridiculous. It has a stylish gloss and sexy glow, no doubt about it. Only French cinema could get away with it.
Yet once the credits roll, its essential absurdity and obtuseness become apparent: it's a solemn belle de jour tale with a touch of David Hamilton softcore, existing outside the grim reality of vulnerable women being abused and trafficked.
Abdellatif Kechiche's Blue Is the Warmest Colour was attacked as a movie for middle-aged men; that charge could be made far more powerfully against Jeune & Jolie.
Yet it has to be said that Marine Vacth is excellent as Isabelle, the schoolgirl with a secret life as a €500 prostitute,...
François Ozon's fervent and well-acted drama about a 17-year-old girl exploring her sexuality by becoming a high-class call girl is very watchable … and entirely ridiculous. It has a stylish gloss and sexy glow, no doubt about it. Only French cinema could get away with it.
Yet once the credits roll, its essential absurdity and obtuseness become apparent: it's a solemn belle de jour tale with a touch of David Hamilton softcore, existing outside the grim reality of vulnerable women being abused and trafficked.
Abdellatif Kechiche's Blue Is the Warmest Colour was attacked as a movie for middle-aged men; that charge could be made far more powerfully against Jeune & Jolie.
Yet it has to be said that Marine Vacth is excellent as Isabelle, the schoolgirl with a secret life as a €500 prostitute,...
- 11/29/2013
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Francois Ozon's Jeune et Jolie (Young & Beautiful) begins with a young boy spying on his sister on the beach as she removes her bikini top. It's a scene that comes off incredibly creepy and strange, especially as it moves forward and he runs down to tell her someone is at the house to see her. However, her level of comfort with the situation and the way the two tease one another and interact, as the first of four parts to this film play out, sets your mind at ease. Their relationship is simply different than what I would call "normal" but the performances from the two actors sells the relationship. Unfortunately, this relationship is not at the heart of the film's story... at least not in the back-and-forth way it's initially perceived. Isabelle (Marine Vacth) is turning 17-years-old this summer and she's beginning to explore her sexuality. Similarly, her brother,...
- 5/17/2013
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
François Ozon has concocted a tense, serious study of a 17-year-old girl's sexual awakening. It plays a little like Belle de Jour without the subversion
François Ozon's new film is a luxurious fantasy of a young girl's flowering: a very French and very male fantasy, like the pilot episode of the world's classiest soap opera. There's some softcore eroticism and an entirely, if enjoyably, absurd final scene with Charlotte Rampling, whose cameo lends a grandmotherly seal of approval to the drama's sexual adventure. But this is well-crafted and well-acted, with strong performances from Géraldine Pailhas and Frédéric Pierrot as well-to-do middle-aged couple Sylvie and Patrick, and from newcomer Marine Vacth as Isabelle, their 17-year-old daughter, who is on the verge of a seismic personal transformation. There is also a nice contribution from Fantin Ravat as Isabelle's kid brother Victor: a saucer-eyed onlooker and confidant – and also, I suspect,...
François Ozon's new film is a luxurious fantasy of a young girl's flowering: a very French and very male fantasy, like the pilot episode of the world's classiest soap opera. There's some softcore eroticism and an entirely, if enjoyably, absurd final scene with Charlotte Rampling, whose cameo lends a grandmotherly seal of approval to the drama's sexual adventure. But this is well-crafted and well-acted, with strong performances from Géraldine Pailhas and Frédéric Pierrot as well-to-do middle-aged couple Sylvie and Patrick, and from newcomer Marine Vacth as Isabelle, their 17-year-old daughter, who is on the verge of a seismic personal transformation. There is also a nice contribution from Fantin Ravat as Isabelle's kid brother Victor: a saucer-eyed onlooker and confidant – and also, I suspect,...
- 5/16/2013
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
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