Popular reviews

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  Review by Madison 🎭 ★★★½ 4

  why are french people so depressed and horny that's my question

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  Review by YI JIAN ★★★★½ 2

  Why did Isabelle become a prostitute? The question remains unanswered. It could be just like what his stepfather had speculated; for experimentation, but that's far too simple for my liking. Thinking about it, I find that my train of thought keeps going back to the psychiatrist's question:

  "Are you doing this to see how much you're worth?"

  Yes, worth. Perhaps that's the reason. Isabelle who seems to be so insecure of herself at the beginning completely transformed after her first sexual encounter. I like to think that experience brought a new issue to light for her -- self worth. Everyone's serious at 17. So she had set out to discover her value, every teenager goes through this phase, only Isabelle's…

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  Review by Nick ★★★★★ 2

  Young & Beautiful is François Ozon's ambitious venture into the Fat Girl/Samaritan Girl universe, where adolescent female sexuality is explored through the most controversial yet ultimately maturing manner, and patriarchal slut-shaming is replaced by a strong dose of female self-empowerment.

  In Young & Beautiful, a 17-year-old French girl comes of age while providing escort services to men of various ages. Through naturalistic lens, we follow Isabelle's life, as she juggles her messy family relations while keeping her secret money-making profession on the down low. The origin of Isabelle's decision is never explained, which is in perfect accordance with the inexplicable nature of teenage sensuality. With the whole story divided by four seasons, it's obviously metaphorical of the personal sexual awakening of Isabelle,…

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  Review by Rod Sedgwick ★★★★½ 3

  ''Once a whore, always a whore.''

  Only mere weeks after watching François Ozon's impressive In the House, I stumbled across the latest offering in his consistent and prolific career in Jeune & Jolie (Young & Beautiful). The trajectory of the narrative here was certainly not surprising to me in light of recent reports detailing the increasing trend of female students turning to prostitution to cover their financial needs, but what pleased me most was that Ozon wasn't trying to explore this social issue at all. His main thrust here is a psychological study on a young woman who isn't giving anything away easily.

  Filmed over four seasons and beginning with a family beach holiday, we see from the outset that Isabelle (Marine…

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  Review by chavel ★★★★

  There was a time when European cinema had a special emotionally naked appeal, preoccupied in the throes of mature adult relationships — and simultaneously had a wisdom to it. I had become increasingly disappointed in the past decade however at the measly and rehashed offerings that have less gall, and cinematic sensibility, than such foreign offerings that were produced in decades past.

  Yet one title that unassumingly has grown in my mind is Young & Beautiful, one that threatens to teeter on salaciousness but instead finds a salient humanity. It concerns 17-year old Isabelle (Marine Vacth) — old enough to be beautiful and assimilated with a cosmopolitan world but young enough to be, well, naive — who believes she is immune…

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  Review by Noah Gibson-Baker ★★★

  Young and beautiful is about a 17 year old girl who decides to become a call girl after losing her virginity. As you can expect this film is quite sexual but it doesn't feel pronographic or unjustified, I thought this was impressive as a lot of other films that have very sexual elements show extremely explicit content as a way of justifying the sexual nature of the film without actually giving the sex a purpose.

  There are some pretty good technical elements on display here. The cinematography was good and the score is well composed and fits each sequence well. Although it doesn't sound unique whatsoever and the main theme is overused. I thought all the performances were decent, even…

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  Review by mayumi ★★½

  why french people are like this??? and also,,, why is a man directing a movie about female sexuality??¿¿

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  Review by davidehrlich ★★★

  the type of movie that suggests "French Film" is less of a national classification than it is a genre. though Ozon is certainly aware of his self-parody, no matter how stiff it may be. beautiful young girls grappling with their sexual power and the extent to which they can influence the lives of others is a narrative as familiar as it is reliably watchable, and Ozon's take – which owes as much to the likes of Julia Leigh's SLEEPING BEAUTY as it does to BELLE DE JOUR and its ilk – never fails to find the transaction beneath the clothing. far too insular, but your blood will pool in all the expected places, i suppose.

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  Review by DNA cinephile🏳️‍🌈 ★★★★★

  Young & Beautiful. 2013. Directed by François Ozon.

  François Ozon’s film trajectory continued to move upward as he made “Young and Beautiful.” He had directed “Swimming Pool,” “8 Femmes,” and “Potiche.” Furthermore, he had directed Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert, Ludivine Sagnier, Charlotte Rampling, and Charles Dance to name a few great actors. By the time he directed “Young and Beautiful” he had honed his Hitchcockian style and gave us a truly wonderful film. 

  Marine Vacht (Isabelle, Lea) portrays a seventeen year old middle class French girl who is fascinated by sex and prostitution albeit she wants to run her own business. She was quite successful until one of her best clients died during copulation. What will happen to Isabelle? Ozon is…

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  Review by alisa🍷 ★★★ 1

  When do parents understand that our actions often don’t have anything to do with them, it’s so fucking annoying.

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  Review by CinemaCl🎃wn ★★½

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

  Young & Beautiful (also known as Jeune & Jolie) is the story of a 17-year old girl named Isabelle who after losing her virginity, the experience of which leaves her cold, starts living a double life as a call girl under the alias Lea, which in her opinion is a win-win situation as it allows her to explore her sexuality & she gets paid for it. But when one of her clients dies due to heart attack during an encounter, she leaves & quits prostitution only to be later tracked down by the police who reveals Isabelle's double life to her parents.

  I don't really know what to make of this film. The filmmaker's intention is not as clear as it should be nor…

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  Review by single white femalien ★★

  i wish men would keep their grimy paws off of female sexuality