How does a 20-year-old girl get to write and direct her own movie (written in fact when she only 15)? I guess it helps if you are Suzanne Lindon and your parents are the French stars Vincent Lindon and Sandrine Kiberlain, but it’s still an extraordinary achievement not only to pull it off but also to get so many accolades.
It’s short at 70 minutes, but just long enough to chart the gentle obsession of bored 16-year-old Suzanne (playing herself) with a local actor (Arnaud Valois) also suffering from ennui with his daily routine. We see her hanging out with her chums, being irritated in class by her dumb desk-mate, going to juvenile teen gatherings – and then stalking her prey, this fascinating handsome man with the red scooter, who finally talks to her and they graduate to shared pink cordial and lemonade.The film’s charm lies in its very authenticity – it really does chart a schoolgirl crush from her point of view. At home she is the little girl, with a bemused father who can’t understand what’s changing in her, a perceptive and supportive mother ready to receive kisses and cuddles in return for five Euros – all banal and normal. The added value comes in the dream sequence music-and-dance interludes which is about as sensual as it all gets. A rite of passage film on the transformation of a gangly – almost ‘ugly duckling’ – and a fresh voice. Slight but enjoyable like this review. Short and sweet like the ‘affair’.
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