Cecile is a desirable girl. She knows it and uses herself as a weapon. Even though she has a boyfriend she flirts and leads on every man she runs into. Once she has their attention and their sex drive on full she goes away leaving them with her panties or her phone number. She has a group of girl friends that get very little attention. They hang around and worry about the future, their relationships and their unhappiness with men. Eventually they take on a new career.

Cecile's boyfriend is some little thug as are all his friends some of which are involved with Cecile friends. They commit crimes, talk about their sexual conquests, whine and cry about their girlfriends. Because of tough economical times they have no jobs.

Matt is perhaps the main male character here. He's a mechanic and at the beginning of the movie has a run in with Cecile, a frustrated one which is her specialty. He has a girlfriend, Alice, but she won't put out. When her mom catches the young couple walking around, Alice gets in big trouble. Apparently wherever this is taking place, the harbor town still has some Victorian small town morality.

An older couple is significant for these people's lives because, like everyone else here, they aren't getting any, but devise a plan to change that, a plan the will involve Cecile who in turn will involve Alice. It all ends on a happy note.

In Q you get to witness all these frustrated people-frustrated financially, frustrated sexually-going about being frustrated and having frustrated sexual encounters and quickly it frustrates you too. Cecile is an interesting character. She's a free spirit, sexually open, and very attractive. She too is mighty frustrated sexually and looks for thrills by using, abusing, and manipulating people. She and most other women in this movie tell men some very hurtful things, when men are at their most vulnerable. This movie ought to have been a more detailed exploration of that kind of woman who delights in arousing men for kicks. But this movie doesn't do that, it goes for the easy and nice solution. In meantime one has to put up with all the drama with these relationships among characters that are never clearly established. And I use "drama" in the worst sense possible, as used by young people today. People are constantly crying, when they are alone, when they are with their loved ones. It's a bit too much. All the men here are weaklings and whiners- an easy target for Cecile. We know next to nothing of the other males or Cecile's friends, but when one of them whines about sex or a partner, the camera is there.

Thankfully, this movie shows plenty of skin nicely filmed which keeps you entertained in between scenes that have you throwing up your arms in the air in frustration. There is some XXX activity going on, but I wouldn't even call them "scenes," they are just a few frames really. Nothing that should outrage anyone. Appropriately, there's a certain timelessness in this movie. We have no idea how much time transpires in part because some scenes in the future are interspersed throughout the movie and also because these people are stuck in some very old fashioned way of looking at things. Still, Q is watchable, it is not like some Brisseau movie that puts you to sleep even as women are taking their clothes off. Q does feature the best opening credits ever unfortunately filmed in black and blue coloring though. Not to mention that Deborah Revy and Helene Zimmer are very attractive in a normal sort of way without being fake bombshells. Q has a couple of good idea and some excellent talent, it could and should have been so much more.

Relationships as portrayed in this movie make you almost long for the new American transactional type of relationship among the sexes.

But a very effective movie. I had no idea watching this, that it would have graphic nudity in it. Nor that it would also include actual penetration (oral sex and more). But that is not the reason I was positively surprised by this movie. The performances did it. And the fact, that the woman actually feel real in this one. They have their problems and desires and feel like well thought persons, which unfortunately even in "normal" movies is not always the case.

If you don't have a problem with the sexual and erotic nature of the movie, you will watch a drama that is very well made. Interestingly enough by a man, who obviously wanted to break with some conventions and clichés. But remember, this is more an drama that is erotic/sexual, than erotic with some added drama!

Talking to a family friend about my disappointing viewing of a 2012 Erotic Neo-Noir Thriller from Bollywood called Hate Story,I was surprised to hear from him,that he had in fact also just recently discovered a 2011 Erotic Drama from France called "Q".After originally thinking that he must have gotten another title for the film confused with Tim Blake Nelson's 2001 movie O,I began to look forward to hopefully seeing an Erotic film being done in the "correct way"

The plot:

Carrying round a box of her fathers ashes due to struggling to say goodbye to her dad,Ceclie tries to deal with the frustrations that she is by getting closer to her main friends Matt (a garage mechanic) and Alex (a car thief).

Finding both of them to have no feelings at all in trying to help and solve the problems,Ceclie begins to let her frustrations by playing on the sexual frustrations of Alex and Matt,which leads to Matt trying to quench the frustrations of desire that Ceclie has brought up,with his girlfriend Alice,who has not yet taken the "next step" with Matt,due to having deep frustrations of allowing her desire to be free.

View on the film:

Staying just about on the right side of Erotic instead of sleaze,each of the relatively new cast members give brave performances as each of them make the non-simulated sex scenes ones which are focused on the inner frustrations of the characters,rather then the exterior titillation.

Appearing in her first ever lead role,the beautiful Deborah Revy gives a strong,confident performance as Ceclie,with Revy making sure that Ceclie does not become a frustrating characters for the viewer by making sure that her attempts to winded other people up connects to the frustrations that Ceclie is trying to untangle.

Using the ongoing Great Recession as a backdrop for the film,the excellent screenplay by writer/director Laurent Bouhnik shows the relationships between Ceclie,Alex,Matt and Alice to be ones that are fractured due to all of them wanting to see growth in their relationships,but being unable to deal with the frustrations that each of them brings out in the other.

Along with the frustrations over their relationship,Bouhnik also brings a clever role reversal element into the film,with Cecilie being shown to be the most masculine character in the movie,from chatting with fellow patrons in a shell room about the qualities of a number of men "in bed",to knowing the exact buttons to press to increase Matt's frustrations,which leads to Bouhnik unleashing what initially appears to be a fracture ending,but slowly shows itself to be an untangling of the frustrations,and also loosely connected to the opening moments of the film.

Shooting in sharp,sharp tracking shots and long,stilted takes,Bouhnik takes the Erotic scenes in a direction which temporarily reveals the hidden causes the characters are frustrated by,which turns the meaning of the "Q" into being a "Q"uestion of desires.