The French actor, director, and producer Rebecca Zlotowski made a splash in 2016 with the World War II film “Planetarium,” starring Lily Rose and Natalie Portman. Although it’s been a few years between that film and her follow up, “An Easy Girl,” Zlotowski has been very busy. She directed episodes of “Savages” on Canal +, co-directed “J’irai où tu iras” and started the 5050×2020 movement, a campaign for gender parity at the Cannes Film Festival.
But it’s a treat to watch Zlotowksi return to her art-house roots, especially the warm, seductive, and ebullient “An Easy Girl,” which stars Mina Farid and Zahia Dehar. The movie begins with Dehar frolicking, bare-breasted, in a secluded cove near Cannes. The camera zooms in on her knees, thighs, and neck. These shots pay homage to Eric Rohmer’s “La Collectionneuse,” which opens in a similar fashion, and tells the story of two men who pine for a younger girl on summer vacation. Zlotowski has cited “Collectionneuse” as an influence, and her world is so steeped in Rohmerisms—sun, water, and lots of skin—that you, too, feel like you’re getting a tan in the South of France.
The premise is simple, and at 92 minutes, the film is breezy, relaxing, and efficient. It’s the story of Naima’s (Farid) summer vacation. She turns sixteen on the last day of school. When she gets home, she has a surprise: a visit from her 22-year-old cousin, Sofia (Dehar), who has been living in Paris. Sofia is a Bridgette Bardot look-alike—she flaunts her curvy body and soft, honeyed skin as if it were the main attraction at an auction. In the evening, on the waterfront, she gets a number of bids.
The most enticing of which comes from two older yachtsmen, Andres (Nuno Lopes) and Philippe (Benoit Magimel). For the next week, Naima ditches her friends to tag along with Sofia on the men’s boat, observing a bourgeoisie lifestyle she can’t relate to but wants to be a part of.
Zlotowski captures something honest about teenage female desire, without patronizing or objectifying, because she’s experienced, first hand, how those feelings work: all the doubt and mystery, but also the joy and discovery. She wonderfully depicts the transition from “boys are gross” to “Did you see ____ in class today? He’s kinda cute.” When Naima peers through Sofia’s door, witnessing graphic sexual acts, her confusion is so accurate that it causes flashbacks to the first time you saw…it.
The movie’s best scene, however, is one in which a hostess attempts to humiliate Sofia with a remark about plastic surgery. Sofia smiles, politely responds, then strips naked and dips in the pool. It’s so well written, and it reveals Sofia to be more intelligent than she lets on. Despite being the easy girl of the title, her easiness is a tactic to win over men who need to feel superior.
“An Easy Girl” works in a similar way. It wins you over you with its beauty, its lapping tides, swaying palm trees, the dreamy music of Debussy and Schubert on the soundtrack. What keeps you watching is what’s under the surface, the nuanced look at love, romance, and the distinction between the two. There are times when it struggles with pace, especially with all the long takes of people tanning (bring sunscreen!). But Zlotowski’s direction, and Farid’s performance, pull us along Naima’s journey toward making sense of it all. She’ll never forget her summer with Sofia. Neither, remarkably, will we. [B+]
“An Easy Girl” is available now on Netflix.