Attempting to subvert the voyeuristic gaze and cautionary coming-of-age moralizing, the film is an unconventionally compelling if conflicted seasonal portrait.
FrançoisOzon's intriguing, perplexing portrait of ayoung woman, who facilely fits the soap opera-leaning title, purports to obscure notions of voyeurism and coming-of-age familiarities about female sexuality. Seasonally structured like a play where the bright, free-spirited months fall to more sinister machinations with the possibility of redemption and transcendence in the spring, Young & Beautiful [Jeune & jolie] initially pr