If a film can be saved by its actors, this one is arguably one of them ;it's a pleasure to see three sadly missed thespians in "la contre-allée ": Caroline Cellier , excellent as ever, portrays a prostitute bigger than life ; Jacqueline Maillan , who would shine on Parisian stages , is ideally cast as a madam of sorts ; Jacques Perrin, unfortunately , has only one scene , but he makes it count .
It's extraordinary they survive such a spate of implausibilities and clichés :
-the mother is almost never to be seen, she doesn't try to get in touch with the driver who's responsible for her daughter's accident ;she does not seem to care about her,a diabetic teenager at that!
-the father , a great photographer who's always travelling around the world is par excellence the cliché to end all the clichés.
-the teenager and her -more mature -friend are only interested in sex ; the young heroine can even buy a pornographic magazine in a news stand ,it takes the biscuit all the same ! ; the Italian who prefers voyeurism to astronomy gets on one's nerve in the long run ,and his scenes with Marie should have been edited out .
Fortunately , the scenes between Cellier and her young friend are endearing , her friendhip with her old mate in her bar is convincing too. Strange how the prostitute ,little by little, seems to become a substitute for the absent mother , going as far as to meet the principal of the school ,and to opt for a more conventional dressing .Probably, a home is something she secretly longs for.
