Sandrine Bonnaire is wonderful in the role of a teenager coming of age, and is really the only reason to watch this film. Her character deals with a fractured and abusive family while exploring her emerging sexuality with several boys, which is the main gist of what felt like a rather formless story. Along the way, there were aspects that were unpleasant, such as hints at incest, a creepy brother ("you should smell my sister"), and domestic violence. Worse yet, the film doesn't really explore these things in a meaningful way. They happen and are immediately forgotten - there is no real trauma, only smiles as if nothing had happened. In any event, the familial relationships didn't seem particularly authentic or fleshed out. The film seems to shame the daughter's sexuality or possibly link her inability to love someone to her home life, neither of which I appreciated. The best moments were when she experiences angst because of decisions she's made, as those were truly her viewpoint, but there are only a couple of them. Much of the film seemed like shallow melodrama, written from a male point of view. On the strength of Bonnaire's performance and screen presence this was watchable, but even there as she was just 15 when it was made, the nudity and sex scenes are problematic.
Review of To Our Loves
