As a rule I have a hard time watching Vanessa Paradis but on the other hand I've only seen the stuff she did in the last decade. In this, her debut effort at the age of 17, she had yet to hone her nauseating Goldie Hawn schtick and was halfway believable as a screwed-up wild child. Director Brisseau cast 60 year old Bruno Cremer as the older teacher who has an affair with her (but was careful to cast 42 year old Ludmila Mikael as Cremer's wife) and just about stopped short of having Cremer say to Paradis 'let's get together and compare taboos'. There may well be an acceptable side to 60 making out with 17 and Brisseau might have been the guy to tap into it if he didn't have a penchant for sleaze - this, after all, is the guy who was arrested for sexually harassing an actress on a subsequent film, Chose Secrets, also steeped in unhealthy sex. If you work at it you can just about work up a sympathetic approach to the story and if all else fails there's always Mikael who could have done with more screen time. Overall this is interesting rather than entertaining.
Review of White Wedding
