Mauvaises fréquentations (1999) Directed by Jean-Pierre Améris
Drama / Romance
aka: Bad Company
Film Review
Director Jean-Pierre Améris followed up his critically acclaimed second
feature Les Aveux de l'innocent
(1996) with this slightly awkward coming-of-age drama, a well-acted
piece that suffers from a dearth of imagination on both the writing and
directing fronts. Based on a real-life story, Mauvaises fréquentations
offers a more sordid take on a familiar theme but struggles to break
away from the tiresome clichés that beset many films of this
kind. The performances from the three leads - Maud Forget, Lou
Doillon and Robinson Stévenin - are excellent but all three
actors are burdened by a script that fails to make their characters
entirely convincing. Compared with his work on earlier and
subsequent films, Améris's direction is startlingly cautious and
has none of the flair and daring that we now associate with this
talented auteur. Mauvaises
fréquentations is an engaging and thoughtful piece of
drama but it offers very little in the way of depth and originality.
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Film Synopsis
Delphine is a 15 year-old-girl who knows nothing about life. Then
she meets Olivia, a girl who seems to know everything. It is
through Olivia that Delphine begins to unravel the mysteries of
adulthood and in no time she has embarked on her first love affair,
with a sexually precocious boy named Laurent. To raise money so
that he and a friend can escape to America, Laurent persuades Delphine
and her classmates to offer their services as prostitutes to
schoolboys. Delphine is about to discover some of the nastier
truths of the adult world...
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