An interesting movie, really, but I found it average.

Isabelle is on a family beach holiday in the south of France. Her father is long gone with his own young family in Italy. She is about to turn 17. She loses her virginity to hunky Felix but it's not as great as she expected. A few months later, she's working as a high class call girl claiming to be 20 year old Lea. Her elderly client Georges dies from a heart attack during sex. She leaves him behind. Later, the police contacts her mother after tracking her down.

Marine Vacth is playing a cool aloof hot girl. I'm not sure if she's the next great thing. She doesn't do much more than be that young and confused girl. She is giving a limited acting range. Director and writer François Ozon delivers a paper thin plot. It doesn't give much insight into Isabelle's inner thoughts. There are no simplistic answers. It basically gives no answers. It has a nice cameo at the end but it doesn't use it to full advantage either.

And that description is certainly fitting for lead actress Marine Vacth, even if she was about 5 years older than her character when this film was made. And that certainly doesn't mean that she does not fit the character. On the contrary really. "Jeune et jolie" is the newest movie by French director François Ozon, already his 36th directorial effort, which is quite an impressive number for his age regardless of most of his early work consisting of short films, and he also wrote most of his movies, just like this one. It's a mix of seduction, voyeurism, teen angst and just growing up in general.

A girl loses her virginity to a boy she met during a travel with her family and that event is one of the early factors that pulled her into the world of prostitution. Back at home and school, she gets asked by a man if she'd be interested in sex and agrees. From that moment on, she does it more often, pretty much every time she can without her family finding out. It turns into an addiction and I never really felt she did it just for the money, more for the feeling of being desired. However, one day, during sex an old married man, has a heart attack and dies. The security cameras at the hotel have her recorded, so quickly afterward disaster unravels. Her mother finds out and the relationship between the two is one of the core elements of the rest of the film. Her step-dad basically doesn't get involved too much. Nonetheless, the one dialog scene near the end is one of the highlights of the movie until the mother steps in. I won't go much into detail here, you just have to see it. Even with the girls' struggles, it may just be a reflection of the troubles the other people in her life have, like her mother having an affair with a friend of the family.

The only reason why I'm not giving this more than six stars was the ending. It seemed a bit rushed, the sudden break-up with her boyfriend and the meeting with Rampling's character at the end. Rampling is without a doubt a very talented actress, but to me it felt just to have her included for the sake of it. The dialog between her and the protagonist added nothing to the story and the final scene at the hotel room felt just odd to me and not really realistic or fitting as an ending to this actually good movie. I'm positive we'll see more from Vacth in the next years and she should realistically at least have a career as prestigious as Virginie Ledoyen or Ludovine Sagnier. I wouldn't say "Jeune & jolie" was a great showcase for her range yet (certainly not as great as for her looks). She wasn't as quietly devastating as she could have been with her character's actions but possibly this was also the director's intention to make it not over-the-top tragic. I hope for the young actress that one of her next projects will be her great breakthrough if this one doesn't turn out that way.

If you're mean you could say this is especially a good watch if you're horny, but, in fact, this film is a lot more. I recommend it and let me finally add that also lovers of French music won't be disappointed. This is often something I'm missing in German or English-language films, but the use of actually sung music is miles ahead in French movies compared to most films from other countries, especially if you love chanson, but also if you love more modern artists.