[Netflix] A coming-of-age film that emulates Eric Rohmer with direct references to "La collectionneuse" (1967) but remains on the surface of more or less successful imitation. It gives the impression that it doesn't have much to say about growing up and the appearance of a certain superficiality around the body and sex, although the director intends to bring a certain background to Sofia's character and a certain vitality to Naïma's. Not even the game of ambiguities that is built through the relationship with mature men ends up being too eloquent.
An Easy Girl (or Emmanuelle 24), in which a young woman who sleeps with men for gifts teaches her 16-year-old cousin how to sleep with men for gifts, all the while spouting 1970s soft core porn philosophy ('I believe people's souls have an age that doesn't change', or the rich 'anarchist' who has a yacht and says he can afford to be an anarchist because only those who have money can despise it).
The entire marketing campaign for the film is based on flogging the lead actress who rose to fame as an underage prostitute for the national French football team and who appears as genuine as her lips with a talent as natural as her breasts.
Review by LNeroBlockedParent2023-07-29T05:25:26Z
This film starts our looking more amateurish than it ends. It's definitely an imitation, but, after it spends its initial thrust emulating a certain historical cinematic style, I realized that it was actually forming a compelling narrative involving Naïma's character (and Phillippe's). I didn't expect to stay interested, or, honestly, even necessarily pay attention to the main story instead of just Zahia's breasts, but I found myself quite invested in the relationship between Naïma and Phillippe, and Naïma's aspirations, by the end.
I really didn't expect them to come right out and take a jab at Zahia's botched facial "enhancements", even if the film is ostensibly centered around her playing herself as a Cannes yacht girl, but they did just that.
Also, holy shit, Frenchies still are fucking smoke stacks. I can't imagine being around an entire table of people ripping draws on cigarettes, two decades into the 21st century. I had to deal with that while living with trashy people (including family) in my teens and twenties, and I absolutely would not tolerate that kind of behavior as an adult. Does no one in France have allergies? It's like going back a century, and not at all in a good way.