Young & Beautiful

Name: Young & Beautiful
Genre: Drama
Released: April 25, 2014
Duration: 95 min
Rating: 63
Cast: Charlotte Rampling, Fantin Ravat, Frédéric Pierrot, Géraldine Pailhas, Johan Leysen

2014

METASCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 27 Critic Reviews

See All

USER SCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 29 Ratings

See All

6.9

VOTE NOW

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

6.9	Your Score
6.9	User Score Generally favorable reviews based on 29 Ratings

Would you like to write a review?

There is a 75 character minimum for reviews. If your review contains spoilers, please check the Spoiler box. Please do not use ALL CAPS. There is no linking or other HTML allowed. Your review may be edited for content. 0/5000

Check box if your review contains spoilers

Movie Details & Credits

IFC Films | Release Date: April 25, 2014 | Not Rated

Starring: Charlotte Rampling, Fantin Ravat, Frédéric Pierrot, Géraldine Pailhas, Johan Leysen, Marine Vacth

Summary: The portrait of a 17 year-old girl (Marine Vacth), in 4 seasons and 4 songs.

Director: François Ozon

Genre(s): Drama

Rating: Not Rated

Runtime: 95 min

See All Details and Credits

Watch Now

Buy on

Stream On

Expand

Metascore

Positive:

Mixed:

Negative:

Critic Reviews

Jamie S. Rich

Apr 3, 2014

Young & Beautiful is mysterious and erotic, though the ending may leave some as cold as Isabelle. Read full review

Mike D'Angelo

Apr 23, 2014

It’s remarkably assured and subtle work, worthy of comparison to Catherine Deneuve’s brilliantly blank turn in Buñuel’s film. Read full review

James Mottram

Apr 3, 2014

Ozon keeps the melodrama at bay to deliver a typically subversive study of growing pains. And in Vacth he’s found a real star-in-waiting. Read full review

Chris Nashawaty

Apr 23, 2014

Young & Beautiful, with its barrage of fairly graphic sex scenes, is a throwback to the erotically charged, envelope-pushing Euro art-house films of the '60s and '70s such as Blow-Up and Last Tango in Paris. Read full review

Kiva Reardon

May 15, 2014

Never amounts to anything more than its title’s shallow descriptors. Read full review

The Guardian Peter Bradshaw

Apr 3, 2014

François Ozon's new film is a luxurious fantasy of a young girl's flowering: a very French and very male fantasy, like the pilot episode of the world's classiest soap opera... But this is well-crafted and well-acted. Read full review

Elizabeth Weitzman

Apr 24, 2014

All we’re left with is the sight of older men hiring a gorgeous young woman to take her clothes off and fulfill their desires. If nothing else, Ozon does leave us wondering whether he intended such an uncomfortable parallel between life and art. Read full review

SEE ALL 27 REVIEWS

Write a Review

User Reviews

NightReviews

May 27, 2014

The topic of teenage sexuality has always been a fascination of French auteurs and French cinema in general. Exploring the many fascinating avenues of contemporary sexual decision making and the choices of many multi-layered characters within the countless French narratives revolving aroundThe topic of teenage sexuality has always been a fascination of French auteurs and French cinema in general. Exploring the many fascinating avenues of contemporary sexual decision making and the choices of many multi-layered characters within the countless French narratives revolving around adolescents, François Ozon’s latest Young & Beautiful is a mysteriously alluring tale of carnal choices and fateful meetings that shape the life of its protagonist Isabelle (played marvelously by Marine Vatch in a star-making performance) and the people’s lives she touches upon her decision to become a prostitute in modern day Paris, France.

Opening on a family vacation somewhere on the idlyic French coast, we are introduced to Isabelle and her family during one of their annual summer vacations. The family, a well-to do working class unit, enjoy the very simple pleasures of togetherness and vacationing. Isabelle is introduced as a beautiful and presumably innocent young seventeen year-old girl who; enjoys laying on the beach, sharing her adolescent experiences with her curious little brother Victor (Fantin Ravat), and is looking to lose her virginity to a young and handsome German boy named Felix (Lucas Prisor). Coming face-to-face with the ideal of love and fleeting innocence as well as a version of herself she may never again become, the events that unfold during this particular summer vacation are the events that shape Isabelle and her tenacious, yet completely aloof understanding of love, sex, passion and pleasure, forever.

While the film premiered at last years Cannes International Film Festival, Young & Beautiful was unable to win the illustrious Palme D’Or, instead holding on to its ‘in competition’ nomination and watching its French relative, the instant cult classic Blue Is The Warmest Color take away the prize instead. While both films are from France and equally deal with young women’s integration into a world of sexuality and the deep complexities of love, each film comments differently on the expectations of relationships and the harsh realties between the difference of love and lust. The irony of the two films lies in the exposure and expectations each film connotes. Blue, one of the most pronounced love stories of the last decade, gained its stark reputation thanks to the graphic lesbian sex scenes between its two stars and their prosthetic genitals. While Young & Beautiful is a film that follows the actions of an underage prostitute and her inability to accept love or the deep notions of human interactions with or without intercourse, Blue was the one that gained all the controversy. Young & Beautiful‘s protagonist Isabelle experiences a plethora of sexual preferences, from animalistic suedo-machoism, to gentle moments of tender affection, Isabelle’s sexual memoir is highly dependent on her disconnection with herself and her misunderstood sexuality. Amidst sessions masterbating and boyfriends, Isabelle is less concerned than her search of the orgasm, and more preoccupied with the sexual experiences and the longing to be touched.

Youth is the topic under extreme scrutiny in François Ozon’s latest sexual marvel of a film. Although many may see the film as a rendezvous towards exploring the psyche behind Isabelle’s choice to being a prostitute, Ozon is interested much more on the idea of normal people enacting their suppressed desires to leading lives as outcasts, vagabonds and social rejects, for no good reason at all. Young & Beautiful is a brutal film starved of reasoning and logic and saturated with fundamental desires of action, spontaneity and the idea of ‘want’.

Young & Beautiful radiants in its script. Elegantly written, Isabelle is at the centre of many of the revelations revealed in the film and the ways in which the characters progress. Her relationship between her brother is one that draws direct comparisons to a younger version of Brendan (Michael Fassbender) and Sissy (Carey Mulligan) in Shame, in the ways they share their sexual experiences and how they interact and have an unconditional love for one another, despite their ability to directly hurt each other. Scenes involving Isabelle and her mother Sylvie (Geraldine Palihas) are some in the best of the film, and how two women’s lives of deceit and manipulation can differ so much. Isabelle interacts mostly with men, with the exception of her mother. Her relationship between her most beloved client Georges (Johan Leysen), an elderly business man who spends more time acknowledging the immense youthful beauty consuming Isabelle, provides the film with the closest thing we have to a love story. Additional scenes of Isabelle with her stepfather Patrick (Federic Pierrot), a therapist (Serge Hefez), and an unexpected client near the end of the film delivers poignant insight on the director’s expectation of the imagination and impacts they have on reality.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

VonSeux

Apr 29, 2014

Toughtful, provoking and artistic. Much superior to another french movie with young girls and sex released this year (Blue is the warmest color). Francois Ozon is one of the most interesting film makers out there. Writting and directing is genius, does not give much away, but give usToughtful, provoking and artistic. Much superior to another french movie with young girls and sex released this year (Blue is the warmest color). Francois Ozon is one of the most interesting film makers out there. Writting and directing is genius, does not give much away, but give us characters shockingly realistic. I'm not french, and there's such different cultural point of view towards sex, this may affect you different ways.. Heck, if you don't care about all this, watch it just for Fantin Ravat - gorgeous.… Expand

2 of 2 users found this helpful20

foxgrove

Apr 25, 2014

Francois Ozon always tackles bold subjects with minimum fuss and a strong narrative drive. Young and Beautiful is no exception in its telling of a young girl's experience as a prostitute.
The film is broken down into the four seasons and is at its best in the second half when the girl'sFrancois Ozon always tackles bold subjects with minimum fuss and a strong narrative drive. Young and Beautiful is no exception in its telling of a young girl's experience as a prostitute.
The film is broken down into the four seasons and is at its best in the second half when the girl's dalliances are discovered by her parents. Up to this point we are just presented with the various sexual interludes with different men, which is really only of minimal interest. Frustratingly we never really comprehend why the girl goes into prostitution in the first place and the ending is left somewhat open.

Lead actress, Marine Vacht, certainly lives up to the title description and the music is also notably complimentary. In fact there really isn't much to dislike as it's all very pretty and watchable, if a tad insubstantial.… Expand

1 of 1 users found this helpful10

atabeyordekci

Aug 19, 2021

After losing her virginity, Isabelle takes up a secret life as a call girl, meeting her clients for hotel-room trysts. Throughout, she remains curiously aloof, showing little interest in the encounters themselves or the money she makes. (6)

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

SEE ALL 4 REVIEWS