Young & Beautiful (2014)

This turned up on Netflix and I watched it mostly because Charlotte Rampling was in it; I'd not just watch Rampling read a phone book, I'd be okay with her just kind of standing around holding one. However, I expected an exploitation flick, and to a certain extent, that's what this is, but not altogether. There is a lot going on in this here Un De Film.Yeah, it's kind of about some drop-dead gorgeous French teenager from a well-off Euro-prog family inexplicably deciding to become a hooker, and the movie makes no effort to explain, in words, why; and that seems to bother a lot of reviewers. I kind of half-watched it until the scene where Isabelle has sex for the first time, and then was really and truly appalled. In my real life, I've had a young woman (not a girlfriend, more of a sister... hard to explain) describe a supposedly consensual experience in exactly these terms: looking at herself, it wasn't happening to her, etc. and in real life she was unable to explain to me WHY she found the experience so devastating. She insisted the encounter was consensual and absolutely not the guy's fault. But she clearly suffered a deeply traumatic experience, and it did affect her in a very, very serious way. I asked her about after a time and how she felt, and she answered with the following declaration, with a grim facial expression: "It doesn't matter, what's one f*** more or less." And then continued in sexual behavior that clearly she was unhappy with. To say I was horrified is a gross understatement. So I've dealt with a very similar situation. My take is that some people, regardless of biological status or physical age, simply do not have the emotional maturity to have truly consensual sex with another person at certain stages. Not everyone really matures at identical rates; and after a number of years of thinking, it seems to me that some people engage in sex because they feel it to be a societal norm, and if they don't, they feel they're not 'normal'. The woman, too, in real life, was a knock-out; an extremely beautiful woman, so much so it was a pain to do social things with her due to the constant advances she'd get. Men (and some women) would just lose their minds. She was also European, from that Euro-prog environment depicted in this movie.When Isabelle accepts the offer of money-for-sex, did it occur to anyone it might be a (traumatic) response to the knowledge she's expected to engage in sex due to her society, but doesn't enjoy the 'act' at all, or at least with another person? And that the money (which is shown as not really about the money) serves as symbolic compensation for a socially- expected act she finds demeaning, shaming, and humiliating? The money then acts as a kind of 'control': SHE is in charge, SHE decides who she has sex with, SHE controls the set-up of the situation. The one episode of 'bad sex' she has, isn't an assault or rape but the john not paying her properly, and she is shown having an angry tantrum. Like the little kid she really is, inside.Seeing it this way, the mother leaving condoms out for her, encouraging her to have 'normal' sex with 'nice boys', is gross and appalling: how is the mother not just pimping Isabelle out, herself? Inviting these boys to the dinner table, into their house? Into the family? Why doesn't she just invite one of Isabelle's johns while she's at it? The question of, "Why would you have sex for money?" is then morphed in Isabelle's mind into, "Why would any woman have sex for free?" The party scene would have been much clearer if, like the apartment in FIGHT CLUB with the furniture, there had been little pop-ups from Isabelle's mind pricing out all the fumbling sexual behavior she sees... before she leaves the party in obvious disgust. To meet a 'nice boy' she refuses to have sex with, or at least not right away. All I can say is, I half-agree with the reviewer from Turkey, about the indictment of 'vapid Western culture', insofar as it's my firm belief that no single culture is one-size-fits-all. Some women are perfectly fine with a culture of open, early, sexuality; some women are just not. And that social expectations are an extremely powerful thing that can really damage people very badly. I hated the depicted, so-called 'parents' in this movie: what a pack of insipid, clueless fools, stuffing their 'free' value system down the throat of their own daughter, who can't cope with it. About the only character that really came across well was the younger brother. Oh: Charlotte Rampling was smashing.

Isabelle, a seventeen years old beautiful girl, who belongs to a middle class family with a good standing of living, who attends a good school in which she seems to be doing well, decides by herself to become a prostitute who fix rendezvous in hotel rooms, with customers much more old than her, via internet and mobile phone messaging.Her decision comes after an episode which happened during a summer vacation when she lost her virginity with a boy friend with respect to whom she was indifferent. This experience was unpleasant to her.The film don't give to the spectator any clue about the reason why she decided to become a prostitute. My interpretation is that, instead of developing her libido in a healthy way, she did it in a wrong and vicious way. Actually, she doesn't enjoy sex but enjoy the idea of behaving as a prostitute very well rewarded for her job.The story doesn't show this shocking behaviour as a disgrace, but just as something wrong.Eventually, after the death of a customer whom she liked, Georges, and the threats from both the police and her mother, she quits prostitution.The last scene in which the Georges' wife fix a rendezvous with her, in the same hotel room in which Georges died is very interesting, but also doesn't give any clue about what is right and what is wrong.Concluding, the film is interesting and caught my attention till the end, but it didn't answer my quests.

The story goes nowhere and ends fizzling out. In the movie, juvenile prostitution is presented as an innocent passage in the life of young adolescent girls. Some sort of victimless game. The plot is very weak and the characters lack consistency. They are vague and their role is not clear.Spoiler ***Everything revolve about insane sex and heavy lies***. The scenario is not credible nor convincing. At times, the movie seems a documentary of some sort. With this production, it is obvious that François Ozon pleased himself filming young and pretty Marine Vacth from every conceivable angles. Those who don't share the enthusiasm of François Ozon for the sex-appeal of Marine will not find any interest here.

I have to tell that I was so disappointed by this movie that I left the theater about 40 minutes into the film. My summary is that life has already to many sordid things to sit in a film to look at the sordid world of a young woman turning herself into a call girl. I could not find any artistic value in this film, although it has some good photography. As to a plot other than the process of a girl turning into a whore, I could find none. Direction is mostly focused on showing the main actress tits. I found this film voyeuristic, void of plot and sordid. If you want to learn about this subject instead of going into this film, interview a young call girl. If you are a voyeur, you might like this piece of human garbage.