A Filha da Minha Mulher

Patrick Dewaere was a wonderful comic actor (see him in Les Valseuses), while Ariel Besse was rather, er, young. Realistically young. I'd have liked this film even better if I hadn't had to endure the horrible dubbing into English (especially for Ariel Besse's character).

Cast is phenomenal. Excellent acting all around. Beautiful direction. I was sad to see that the young actress didn't do too many more films after this one -- because she is phenomenal in this. Great movie ... but not for politically correct American audiences. A film with this kind of delicate poetry can only be made in France.

Blier is not my favorite French director. Too much irony and too much Godard-a-like in his films. But this one is very different. It's written with great intelligence and, like in most of the French Cinema, it had a wonderful sense of reality. The subject is touchy : a man falls in love with a young teenager (14 years old). But here, we have not the classic Lolita. The young girl looks realistic, and so is her feelings. Superb acting and a great musical score.

A gorgeously photographed and steamy tale of forbidden passion.

Boasting a superb lead performance by Patrick DeWaere as a young Frenchman battling to stifle the seductive advances of his breathtakingly beautiful step-daughter, it is grounded by fascinating character detail and an intelligent, focused script that is deeply interested in the complexities of love and desire.

Ariel Besse is the step-daughter and she is a bubbling, nubile cauldron of curiosity and mischief.

Sacha Vierny's moody photography is worthy of a coffee table hardcover and Philip Sarde's score is perfection.

A delicious, provocative, mature tale of sexual politics.

I really love films such as Beau Pere. When you read the description of the film (a man in his 30's has a love affair with his 14-yr. old stepdaughter after his wife dies), you kinda think that it's going to be a study about some middle-aged pervert engaging in immoral acts of both incest and pedophilia and that in the end the movie will be some kind of moral tale about the evils of such behavior.

But surprisingly, the film engages you, and paralyzes your initial judgements. It pulls you into its world and somehow you become fascinated by the 14-year old girl and slowly begin to sympathize with the stepfather. The performance of Ariel Besse is so beautiful. She has a matter-of-fact way of dealing with the world, in love, sex, relationships, etc.. She doesn't try to be cute (refreshing) and overly charming. As the movie progresses, she seems to have aged before your eyes, (though physically she remains 14). and suddenly, concepts of right and wrong become blurred. I've often read that in the artistic tradition of the French, the concept of morality does not deal specifically with what is right and wrong, persay.. but what is right and wrong as life is lived. Morality comes in the decisions you make as you live it, not as a pre-condition. It's hard to explain... but as the great french director Renoir once said......everyone has his reasons.

P.S. I wish Bertrand Blier would make more movies. The subjects in his movies such as this and others made over 20 years ago (Les Valseuses, Get out you Handkerchiefs, Too Beautiful for you, etc..) would shock people even by today's standards. But because he gives so much humanity to his characters, these taboo subjects can be seen in a different slant... and essentially isn't that what film, or art for that matter, is really all about.