(READ: Mary Corliss on FranГ§ois OzonвЂ™s Potiche) Vacth, 23, is a few years older than her character, but she can pass for Isabelle at a mature and adventurous 17. OzonвЂ™s early films focused on young women manipulating their elders: Water Drops on Burning Rocks, 8 Women and Swimming Pool, all with Ludivine Sagnier as their driving sexual force (SagnierвЂ™s Swimming Pool costar, Charlotte Rampling, makes a welcome, poignant appearance late in Young & Beautiful.) Ozon has said that In the House reminded him of his pleasure directing young actors. HardyвЂ™s songs are about the pains of first love Young & Beautiful is about the business of post-love. She could also be a twin sister to FranГ§oise Hardy, the singer and model of the вЂ™60s four Hardy songs accompany the four seasons in which the film is set. Vacth resembles Deneuve in her cool, unyielding beauty. Isabelle has a cinema forebear in Catherine DeneuveвЂ™s character - a loving wife who becomes a prostitute to act out her sexual fantasies - in Luis BuГ±uelвЂ™s Belle du jour (1967). Set in todayвЂ™s Paris, Young & Beautiful takes several cues from 1960s French popular culture. Her choice of profession is not about the sex. Armored in self-confidence, she needs no pimp to protect her. Even when taking orders of submission from sadistic creeps, Isabelle is in charge. But when I thought about it at home, or at school, I wanted to do it again.вЂќ She may be drawn to her more considerate clients, like the elderly Georges (Johan Leysen). вЂњIt was like a game,вЂќ she tells the psychiatrist (Serge Hefez) she is obliged to consult. (READ: Richard CorlissвЂ™s review of FranГ§ois OzonвЂ™s In the House ) The director suggests that Isabelle wants to create a double life that is even more eventful and reckless, and potentially perilous.

вЂњIвЂ™m not ahead of her, IвЂ™m simply following her, like an entomologist gradually falling in love with the creature heвЂ™s studying.вЂќ But a key can be found in OzonвЂ™s previous film, In the House, in which a 16-year-old schoolboy devised an elaborate, largely fictional world both to amuse himself and to confound his teacher. вЂњThis young woman is a mystery to me, too,вЂќ Ozon has said. Why does she choose this line of work? ThatвЂ™s for the spectator to speculate. That first night, as she lay on the beach with the German boy, another Isabelle stood nearby watching, appraising, detached. So is everyone else Isabelle has a facility for compartmentalizing her activities.

Yet he also is ignorant of her exotic, potentially dangerous career. She is closer to her sweet younger brother Victor (Fantin Ravat), who watches her sunbathe nude or masturbate in her bedroom. In fact, they are the innocents, she the daredevil spy with a dirty secret. Isabelle treats her concerned mother (Geraldine Pailhas) and amiable stepfather (FrГ©dГ©ric Pierrot) the way any teen might: as the security guards of an enemy state who deserve little communication and no straight answers. It pins no blame on society, school, the girlвЂ™s clients or her parents. Yet the tone of the film is tender and judicious. In outline, Young & Beautiful ( Jeune & Jolie, which literally translates as вЂњyoung and prettyвЂќ) appears sensational: I Was a Teenage Call Girl.

(READ: When Blue Is the Warmest Color triumphed at Cannes) At about half the length and a lower dramatic temperature, Young & Beautiful is sexually charged but not prurient, the character study of a person at her most mysterious age, as she navigates from girlhood to womanhood. SheвЂ™s 17.ДЄt last yearвЂ™s Cannes Film Festival, FranГ§ois OzonвЂ™s Young & Beautiful ceded the limelight to another French entry about a teenage girlвЂ™s sexual adventures, Blue Is the Warmest Color, which took the Palme dвЂ™Or and earned both critical acclaim and popular notoriety for its energetic scenes of lesbian love. Earning 300 to 500 Euros for each hotel assignation, she goes by the name LГ©a and gives her age as 20. After a summer by the sea, during which she allowed a German boy to take her virginity, Isabelle has turned her blooming sexuality into a business enterprise: freelance prostitution. In a Paris schoolroom, modern teenagers recite snippets from RimbaudвЂ™s вЂњNo OneвЂ™s Serious at Seventeen.вЂќ One of these students, Isabelle Bontale (Marine Vacth), fills her evenings with more than homework and dreams of the boy in the back row.

Most beautiful teen girl in the world