amyazzopardi I was excited to see the film as I found the premise to be quite intriguing, however the film just didn't do it for me. Maybe something got lost in translation? Although I usually do not have this problem. Or maybe it's because the quality I watched it in wasn't the best? Regardless, I did enjoy the visuals. I liked the cold and grey colours added to the picture, which fit the mood of the film quite nicely. The characters, their hair; the clothing all added to this melancholic mood and it was honestly so aesthetically pleasing to watch. It had this worn out vibe; like a picture from older pictures, which I adored. The camera work was good. Not amazing, but good. Some shots didn't quite make sense, but I guess it can be "part of the art". There was also some shaking which did not really make sense with the narrative, but regardless, I enjoyed the visuals.Alas, I could not really say the same for the story. I am aware it was based on a classic, hence the "tragedy" and dramatisation. The issue? I wasn't convinced. Problematic character number 1: Nemours. A character who exaggerates his emotions and leaves the two people he was screwing (emotionally and physically) for a girl he just laid eyes on. Love at first sight. Bullshit. Junie's feelings I do believe, but she also doesn't exaggerate them (and she's a teenager). She knows she is only attracted to Nemours, however, Nemours, a grown man sprouts out all these fancy words about how he was in love with her and they feel so careless coming out of his mouth as he was not convincing at all. Maybe there was some spark the character missed, or something visually missing. Another problematic character: Otto. He was a delight, but, his voice was too weak, drowned out by all the other plots happening on screen, so much so, that the ultimate peak of the story -- his suicide -- left no impact on me.I did enjoy the ending, which I found pleasant and fitting, and a decision which was very mature of Junie.In conclusion: Aesthetically pleasing -- yes. Was the story convincing? No.

LeoDRK First half hour of this films wanders among characters' stories and relationships. They are too many of them to keeping track of. And the story never starts. What is going on? First Junie's action occurs after 18 minutes. She kisses Otto. And then everything turns gray, undefined. Nemours falls in love. She realizes that but doesn't react clearly. Other stories appear in the middle. But we don't have idea what's the point in all this. When the love triangle is about to close, the writer throws one his character into the void. The only interesting and visible conflict in the movie dies before seeing the light. And we are back to an ambiguous situation where the characters don't know what they want. And in turn don't do anything concrete. The end is more of the same.The main character doesn't care too much about anything. And then we don't care too much about the movie. There is almost no conflict during the film, and when it appears it disappears immediately.

jm10701 This is a lovely, deliberate, melancholy look into the fairy-tale lives of pale, beautiful, preternaturally graceful high-school students in Paris - a dreamy, pearly, wintry Paris on which the harsh sun never, ever shines.The Beautiful Person is so hypnotically beautiful that it drew me through the somewhat jarring adjustment I had to make from my placid late-middle-aged American world into theirs, which teems with sex and longing, but - Oh, my! - it was worth it. This movie is luxurious and delightful.Some of those who do not like it may be unwilling or unable to make such a cultural adjustment, but those who do will be rewarded. Earlier reviews here encouraged me to hang in there through the rough patches in the beginning, when I could not even tell who was who and doing what with whom. Those reviews also hinted that I might be slightly disappointed after Christophe Honoré's last movie, the remarkable Love Songs (Les Chansons d'amour). I was not at all. This is a sadder movie, but it is no less deeply satisfying.Like Love Songs, seeing this once is not enough: I need my own copy so I can watch it over and over. Also like Love Songs, I expect the pleasure it gives will grow richer with each viewing.Something nice I just realized: there are no drugs in this movie, hardly any alcohol (none at all among the kids), no vomiting, no farting, no bullying, no mindless cruelty or grossness of any kind. In other words: This is not an American movie for American teenagers. It is probably not even a realistic view of Parisian teenagers (even they must have a few pimples), but realistic or not it is a joy to behold.

sandover After teaching us the art of levity with his splendid "Les Chansons d' Amour", Cristophe Honore tackles a loose adaptation of the Princess Des Cleves in a modern day Parisian high-school. Junie, a new comer in mid-term, joins her cousin's class, and soon afterwards gets entangled in the game of love. Otto, a boy that I would term the common denominator of serious lovemaking and affection in the film, of stably pursuing his affection towards Junie, is in a way our guarantor in the film of common sense and, at least for me, someone to identify with. His friends term him simpleton when he admits his embarrassment on how to get closer to Junie. But that happens admirably quickly and unaffectedly from both parts, even though we get to understand that Junie has recently lost her mother, that is why she came to school at this time of the year and why she gives way to moods of grave beauty.We are then introduced to the third main character, the one who is given ample presentation in a way, Nemours, a somewhat winning womanizer of both his fellow teachers and students, teacher of Italian.In one of his classes, and under the spell of Callas' Lucia di Lammermoor, Junie gets, for reasons no one probes, overwhelmed with emotion - this is the decisive moment, when Nemours and Junie pierce each other with glances signifying love.Next step, a miscast letter, that everyone thinks is Nemours' and that is being addressed to Junie, finally gets into Junie's hands - yet it is, as we come to learn, her cousin's, addressed to a boy, whence the pressure to retrieve it, though with admirable clarity and absurdity Junie surmises that it is a letter really written to her by Nemours, even though he plainly denies it. Clarity and absurdity go here together because, even though it was not addressed to her, it was she that was actually the addressee, it was meant for her.And as everything that is written means tragedy, it soon arrives. Junie, even if having claimed the letter, does not give in to Nemours' lovemaking, but instead gives herself to Otto, after having tenderly and mischievously given him just before a children's book with the title Otto, and half-said to him that there is another person involved. That is really finely crafted by C.Honore in a visual geometry of passion. Eventually, Otto learns that something is going on between Junie and Nemours and calmly tries to confront it with Junie, yet, there is misunderstanding involved: the person who witnessed them, witnessed wrongly that the two kissed, from the perspective he saw them. That is why Junie rebuts Otto's claim; that way, and as it should be, we loose the common denominator in love's proceedings, and love becomes fatal. Otto does not believe her, and in doing so, does not love her any more. He takes it for a blatant lie and soon afterwards after literally singing away his despair, he commits suicide. From that point on, Junie decides not to give herself to Nemours on grounds that their love will last for some time then expire, ranging it to the hordes of commonality, thing impossible, since Otto, by his suicide, raised the standard to such a degree, namely and actually loving her all his life, that anything less will be degrading. So, after this explanation, she leaves it all behind.Up until somewhere in the middle of the movie I was still wondering to what kind of explosion C.Honore's boiling sourdine will give in, but I felt in a way that the film regressed to some kind of mannerism, in using devices of the two films that came before it, namely the singing in exactly the same tone, and using an actor/singer of the "Chansons d' Amour", right before Otto's suicide, and then, the cut editing in a somber interior reminiscing the technique involved in "Dans Paris", when Junie and Nemours finally meet, the two of them, alone, inside. It may seem trifle, yet I took it as regressive, since C.Honore set himself the standard so high!That said given the fact that this was made for TV, it is of superlative quality as any film we come to expect from French film-makers. Also the fact of watching the same team of actors playing in two films in a row, gives one a rare warm feeling and the wish that they would go on for some more!Even the fleeting presence of Chiara Mastroianni! The subplot is a pleasure, too: the way the two young boys' love is presented in a mocking documentary fashion; and the way in their case the third party reacts, recurring to violence, not contending himself, as happens in the other triangle, to the violence of words.The photography is very good: a gripping, nuanced grayness allover finely portraying the incidents, and at one point, the beautiful faces of the adolescents, not exactly like the rococo fresco coming in the middle of the sequence, but the way a grave, beautiful Giotto stares us. The denouement may not be as sublime as the "beautiful faces" are, but maybe this is the point.