Jeune et Jolie
★★★
Dir: François Ozon
(2013)
François Ozon's Young and Beautiful (as it is so named in the English tongue) has certainly found newcomer matching the promise of the film's title; Marine Vacth and her quiet but affecting portrayal of Isabelle; A 17-year-old girl on the cusp of her sexual beginnings at the story's introduction and so far separated from them at the close. Prostitution certainly isn't a taboo in the world of cinema and although the film never quite hits the highs of Ozon's finest work, it attempts, and for the most part succeeds, in an unbiased and level view of the worlds oldest profession.
We first meet young Isabelle as a virgin, flirting with an older German tourist on holiday with her family. We witness her impressionably awkward first time on a dark beach which is the turning point for the young girl in a totally destructive way. We also take a look at her family dynamic (Géraldine Pailhas and Frédéric Pierrot are great as her mother and stepfather) and her younger and slightly overly curious brother. It's typical Ozon; working within the family house to foreshadow what it is to come or in the case of Jeune et Jolie, what is not to come.
Skip ahead a month with nothing in-between but a title card and we find Isabelle heading up to a motel room with one client and then another and another and another. It hasn't taken her too long to build quite a reputation it would seem. Some of the older men making up 90% of her clients are nicer than others of course but Isabelle's cash box is growing full she carries on, while Ozon looks at a series of little white lies inside her family which may point to her radical frame of mind but meanwhile his film runs out fuel.
Vatch is great, vulnerable and beautiful as Isabelle but Pailhas is the finest thing on show here as the deeply hurt mother with a secret of her own. As for Ozon, and after a stellar run of films, Young and Beautiful suffers it's very serious spoils despite taking a refreshingly non scathing point of view. Though it has an interesting and original take on Isabelle's blank faced near addiction to her work the film sadly slips away with a thunk after sweet and very weird little final scene involving Charlotte Rampling which comes too little too late to spice it up.
