Jeune & jolie 2013

Mary Corliss, TIME Magazine: Vacth has a seductive, covert intelligence. She may not let viewers in on Isabelle's motives, but she does suggest that something is going on. Audiences should be pleased to go with her, not knowing the destination but happy to take the trip. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: He has made a movie that the Louis Malle of Lacombe, Lucien, or the Truffaut of The 400 Blows, would have appreciated, an explicit look at how our humanity gets lost. Read more

Farran Smith Nehme, New York Post: Vacth, like the movie, is beautiful and resolutely humorless. Read more

Leslie Felperin, Variety: A nuanced, emotionally temperate study of a precocious youth. Read more

Mike D'Angelo, AV Club: It's the kind of film that's not afraid to acknowledge that people are fundamentally mysterious, and much of its power comes from the matter-of-fact way that it reconciles various perceptions of Vacth. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: This is a different kind of coming-of-age story. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: Ozon is grasping for something about the rudeness of sexual impulse and how intimates necessarily learn to look the other way, yet he comes to this idea too late in the game to make anything of it. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: Ozon doesn't really spell anything out for us. He uses Vacth, a beauty who somewhat resembles the young Nastassja Kinski or Dominique Sanda, for her eerie, implacable hauteur. There is a mask behind her mask. Read more

Chris Nashawaty, Entertainment Weekly: Even if Isabelle's inner motives remain enigmatic, at least Ozon is interested in posing questions about rebellion and female desire that few male directors even bother to consider. Read more

Jordan Hoffman, Film.com: A movie that bluntly shows a 17-year old girl exploding sex all over the screen. Read more

David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter: A fascinating contemplation of adolescent sexuality that will be a star-making platform for its young lead, Marine Vacth. Read more

Gary Goldstein, Los Angeles Times: Ozon keeps things simmering without quite boiling over, even when convention might demand it. Read more

David Thomson, The New Republic: Prostitution in polite society is still a nettle fearfully grasped. You see, society is not polite and it's about time movies stopped peddling that fluff. Read more

Anthony Lane, New Yorker: The result is both bracing and exasperating ... Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: Ozon is more interested in a woman's pleasure than her pain; he prefers films about small female triumphs, rather than their grand tragedies. Read more

Bob Mondello, NPR: Vacth is persuasively adolescent at the outset, distressingly jaded at the finale, and in between, is entirely capable of making young-and-beautiful sex seem - as perhaps only the French can - ravishing, sensual and utterly unsatisfying all at once. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: Those who just want to admire the oft-naked Vacth will get their money's worth. Those seeking the usual fully realized Ozon drama will be disappointed. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: What is most striking about this movie is how un-self-conscious it is as it conducts a prurient and superficial inquiry into adolescent female sexuality. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: Something happens to Francois Ozon's people when they get near the water. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: There is just something slightly skewed, slightly uncontrolled, beneath Pailhas' reasonable exterior. Read more

Erik McClanahan, Minneapolis Star Tribune: It's a balanced and honest look at young sexuality, and thankfully never didactic in its approach. Read more

Jon Frosch, The Atlantic: A tender, slyly funny and splendidly shot portrait of an adolescent prostitute that is easily the director's best work since "Swimming Pool". Read more

Kiva Reardon, Globe and Mail: Never amounts to anything more than its title's shallow descriptors. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: Trying to figure out Isabelle keeps the viewer engaged, and Vacth's focused acting justifies her being almost continually in the frame. Read more

Dave Calhoun, Time Out: It's to Ozon's credit that he never serves up easy answers, and even after ample scenes of sex and showdowns with those closest to Isabelle, and even a scene with a psychologist, we're none the wiser as to what's driving her. Read more

Keith Uhlich, Time Out: As with many films by the prolific Ozon, there's an ephemeral quality to Young & Beautiful that makes it seem as if it's evaporating as you watch it. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, Village Voice: The picture is reasonably compelling, particularly in the way Ozon outlines the tender relationship between Isabelle and one of her much older clients. Read more

Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post: It became clear, as the movie wore on, that Ozon isn't interested in explanations, psychological insights, lessons, judgments, diagnoses, or any of the other stuff that normally preoccupies storytellers. Read more