Jeune & Jolie

If you have even a passing interest in contemporary French cinema, the chances are you'll have seen at least one film by François Ozon (Swimming Pool, 8 Women, Potiche), and it's a mark of his diversity that you could easily have seen two without realising. However, Jeune & Jolie is one of his middling works, the story of a 17-year-old Parisian girl, Isabelle (Marine Vacth), who sees a lucrative future in prostitution after being propositioned by a much older man outside school. Despite such ostensibly dark subject matter, the film keeps a non-judgemental distance, portraying Isabelle as an otherwise sensible middle-class girl with a taste for designer clothes. It is only when one of her regular clients - by no means a monster - dies during one of their illicit sessions that reality intrudes, but, again, Ozon refuses to take the moral high ground. The film documents the fallout with a refreshing sense of realism, but, while she is undoubtedly both young and beautiful, Vacth lacks empathy as a lead and the songs on the soundtrack - usually so great in Ozon's film - are disappointingly literal.