L’Effrontée (1985) - film review

For Charlotte, a 13 year old girl living in a rural village in France, adolescence is proving to be a traumatic experience.  Her father has little time for her and she no longer sees eye to eye with her maid, Léone, whom she regards as a poor substitute for the mother who died some years ago.  Add to that a vulgar brother and an immature younger friend, Lulu, who is always whinging about her illness, and it is not hard to see why Charlotte wants to get away and start a new life.  Her chance of escape appears to come when she makes contact with a star child pianist, Clara Baumann.  Clara seems to be so taken by Charlotte that she offers her a job as her impresario after her next concert.  Scarcely able to believe her good fortune, Charlotte packs her suitcase and awaits the fated day of the concert with impatience.   In the meantime, she allows a young sailor, Jean, to flirt with her...

One of Claude Miller’s most acclaimed works, and winner of the Prix Louis-Delluc in 1985, L’Effrontée is an extraordinarily engaging film with its heartrending portrait of adolescence.   You get the impression that Miller himself was suffering from teenage fits whilst making the film – the mood constantly shifts between insane optimism and morose despondency, thanks to clever use of music and visually contrasting scenes.   The film’s impact, however, has probably less to do with this technical wizardry and more to do with a solid, non-nonsense piece of acting – from Charlotte Gainsbourg.

In her first substantial film role, Gainsbourg is magnificent.  Her sensitive portrayal of a thirteen year old girl captures the harrowing insecurity and irrational behaviour of adolescence, without resorting to the kind of manipulative sentimentality or loudmouthed histrionics which most cinema audiences have come to expect of teenage actors.  No surprise that this promising young actress was awarded a César in the Meilleur espoir féminin category for her part in this film.  Her co-star, the ever-delightful Bernadette Lafont, also picked up a César, for best supporting actress.

For its honest, perceptive depiction of early adolescence, L’Effrontée bears some similarity to Francois Truffaut’s 1959 film, Les Quatre cents coups.  Claude Miller worked for a while as Truffaut’s assistant director, and his mentor’s influence can be seen in many of his films.  Like Truffaut, several of Miller’s films are concerned with childhood and adolescence.  Miller followed up L’Effrontée with a film which Truffaut had planned to make before his death, La Petite voleuse , another striking study of teenage rebellion, again starring Charlotte Gainsbourg.

© James Travers 2002

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