Mauvaises fréquentations

The French have strong tradition of literature and classy art films (even though they have also made as much crap as anyone else). However, I don't know if it's the influence of television, but last 10 or 15 years or so they have started making more and more films like this about "social problems"--that almost look like they could have appeared on the Lifetime channel in the US (at least if you took out all the nudity). Don't get me wrong this is a lot better than a Lifetime movie (thus the high IMDb rating and generally positive reviews), but like a lot of other recent French movies I've seen such as "Alive", "Student Services", and "Elles", it seems more interested in sending a "social message"--in this case about teen prostitution--than it is in being a coming-of-age film about a singular female character (the kind of film Catherine Breillat has really specialized in with films like "36 Fillette" and "To My Sister"). I obviously prefer the latter.

This is the story of two naïve teenage girls (Maud Forget and Lou Doillon)who are manipulated by their boyfriends into becoming prostitutes (performing oral sex on lines of guys in the bathroom stalls of local parks) in order to finance a trip to Latin America. This is all a little less than believable, not because such things don't happen in real life, but because of the actresses involved. Maud Forget is just really, really cute, but Lou Doillon (the daughter of British beauty Jane Birkin) despite her "unconventional" facial features, looks like a tall, teenage supermodel, which is basically what she was at the time. Just about any teenage boy in real-life would probably be very intimidated by girls like these, and not be manipulating them into low-rent prostitution. (Now, if they were being preyed on by older adult "modeling agents", I could see it). I'm always generally suspicious about movies where teenage girls are naïve and innocent, yet the boys about the same age seem overly clever and evil. It just doesn't ring true.

Maud Forget is really good in this, despite being only about 16 or 17 herself at the time, and to the extent this movie works, it is because of her. Doillon has had much more of her subsequent career, possibly because of her family connections (her father is a director and her half-sister is Charlotte Gainsbourg), but she is miscast and not particularly effective here. She can play "ugly" as she did in "Saint Ange" or a man-eating sex bomb as did in "Sisters" and "Summer Things", but she just doesn't do "ordinary" very well. This might be worth seeing, but I didn't like it as much as a lot of other people did.

Did not know what to expect when I rented this film but I wound up just loving it.

The beautiful Maude Forget just brought out the poignancy of her character of a teenager coping with the angst of first love. Wonderful film.

A must see for anyone needing a break from the car chases, explosions and shoot-'em-ups. Beautiful scenes too in parts of France I would love to live (or retire) in. All in all... you won't regret seeing this film. You'll come away in love with Maude and haunted by the excellent acting of all the players.

This movie is great, theres only one sex scene in it but its so shocking to see stuff not allowed on the states and Mexico as well for a softcore scene with a minor,I liked the movie because it talks about growing up in an enviroment that can take you places you really dont want to be part of,This is not the classical story girl meets boy and boy gets girl, this is more like: Girl meets boy, boy likes girl, boy pimps that girl..etc. shocking stuff happens and lives change forever in this great tale about love and blows, youll like it too.

For more than half an hour, this is no more than a conventional and rather boring story about first love among young teens. Maybe the film makers realized this, adding a rude drama for the second half of the movie, which has very little to do with the first half.

It could work, in the same way a good thriller can take a long time before the horrors emerge - but it doesn't, not at all, because the development of the plot is simply not plausible in the characters. There is nothing in them, which convinces me that they would get themselves into that mess. Nor is there anything about them revealed in the second half of the movie, which would bring light to the sudden change.

It's like two movies in one, or maybe even three or four. One or two of them could be good, left alone, but not a chance when they're messed up with each other.

I for one one know how to say anything in French other that "yes","yes sir","excuse me" and other sorted words/comments which wouldn't get me out of the French airport; but there's something about this movie as all good foreign films that made me fluent in the French language I was immediately wrapped up in the world of these two girls who fall for their boyfriends but despite the fact that their plan to leave all together comes down to the girls degrading themselves into the world of prostitution where the are subsequently seen as outcasts by their friends and classmates and seen as no more then whores by the boys who "use their services" the girls learn the hard way that not everything is the way it seems. In the end I feel sad for the loss of true love due to the circumstances by way of the only boy which really did love her in his own naive way but could not get the same love back from a girl who's hart was stolen by someone else who in the end would betray her trust. In the world we live in now growing pains are much more common by the ways perfectly portrayed in this film and in this ever changing world we could all learn something from the mistakes of these two girls but never the less this kind of life story is one better experienced personally.