In Young and Beautiful Francois Ozon diagnoses what sex means to the contemporary young and beautiful. With so much available not just in films like this but in hard core porn, especially on the internet, it seems commodified and devalued.
Isabelle (Marine Vacth) beats her school-pal in a race to get rid of their virginity. She does it with a handsome German boy she meets on her family’s summer beach vacation. Without mentioning it, her mother and stepfather seem to want to welcome the boy into the family, which puts Isabelle off him.
As the police will explain her venture into prostitution, teens experiment with their sexuality, testing their limits. Isabelle carries on that double life for no other given reason. She doesn’t need and doesn’t spend the big bucks it earns her. She does not find apparent pleasure in the act, though she says when she’s home after, she yearns to return to it. One john urges her to be more natural when she pants like internet porners.
If one looks to the family for an explanation there is not much evidence. Her father lives in Italy and sends her two checks annually (each what she can get from a john). Little moral counsel comes from her stepfather or her mother, who is revealed as a hypocrite when Isabelle questions her affair with a friend’s husband. Isabelle’s closest family relationship is her refreshingly trusting and candid one with her younger brother, who is nearing Isabelle’s experimental age.
Isabelle’s most sympathetic and appreciative john is the aged, Viagra-propped Georges, who dies under her. Though that drives her off prostitution it also nets her in a police investigation and her family’s discovery of her double life. Their response only confirms her detachment from her parents.
When Isabelle ventures into a “normal” sexual experience with a schoolmate, he is appreciative — and unquestioning — that she has the specialized knowledge to help him off. Say it’s digital communication. But again — she loses interest in him when she sees him eagerly accepted into her family’s breakfast.
Isabelle finally learns what sex can be in the last scene, when she is hired for a session by Georges’ widow Alice, in the room in which he died. As Alice is played by the still beautiful sex goddess Charlotte Rampling, the character comes on with immediate mythic heft. Alice and Isabelle converse candidly. Alice envies Isabelle’s courage in requiring payment to prove her sexual appeal. Now, she suggests, she’s too old and would have to buy her pleasure. She wants only to lie beside Isabelle, fully clothed. She accepted Georges’ affairs because she knew they loved each other and shared tenderness. As she caresses Isabelle’s cheek the girl dozes off. She awakens alone and the film ends on her startled rising. The restful discovery of tenderness is her true sexual awakening.
Isabelle finally learns what sex can be in the last scene, when she is hired for a session by Georges’ widow Alice, in the room in which he died. As Alice is played by the still beautiful sex goddess Charlotte Rampling, the character comes on with immediate mythic heft. Alice and Isabelle converse candidly. Alice envies Isabelle’s courage in requiring payment to prove her sexual appeal. Now, she suggests, she’s too old and would have to buy her pleasure. She wants only to lie beside Isabelle, fully clothed. She accepted Georges’ affairs because she knew they loved each other and shared tenderness. As she caresses Isabelle’s cheek the girl dozes off. She awakens alone and the film ends on her startled rising. The restful discovery of tenderness is her true sexual awakening.
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