Review of Young & Beautiful (2013) by Astrid T — 21 Oct 2017

Starts out as a fairly typical French exploration of the crease between sex and ennui, and from there goes.... well, not very far. It takes a detached, indifferent loss of virginity into the adult world, and magnifies the boredom, intentionally, which is an important insight when cinema has a tendency to make sex a kind of mystic religion.

The film has some merit as a character study: Marine Vacth is really interesting to watch, not just because of her extraordinary youthful beauty but because she conveys a great deal with a look, and understands the body language of her character.

A few stylistic flourishes elevate the material: the device of "ghosts" that appear to our main character provide nice emotional punctuation.

But it lacks any real wit to alleviate the tone of unremitting tedium or to deepen the characters; the movie drowns in its own pessimism.