Rebecca Zlotowski’s 2016 World War II film, “Planetarium,” starring Lily Rose and Natalie Portman, may not be a fully successful “genre” film, but it does announce the arrival of a new and vibrant talent. Zlotowski’s “An Easy Girl” had its debut at last year’s Cannes Film Festival where it was crowned Best French Film of the Director’s Fortnight sidebar. And yet, it’s taken a whole year for it to finally get released in the U.S, and via Netflix, no less.
Zahia Dehar plays the titular “easy girl,” Sofia, practically nude the entire movie, as she shows the ropes of free sexuality to her naive 16-year-old cousin, Naima (Mina Farid), during one memorable vacation. Sofia, a curvacious and honey-skinned fireball of sexuality, lives in Paris, but she surprises Naima, our main protagonist, and the narrator of the story, randomly showing up, out of the blue, at her cousin’s Cannes villa. It’s not long before two older men, Andres (Nuno Lopes) and Philippe (Benoit Magimel), pine for the girls' attention on their summer yacht. Sofia is open to the invitation, but primitive Naima less so.
Zlotowski’s film tackles a week in the life of these two women. Naima ditches her friends to tag along with Sofia on the men’s boat, as she is intrigued by the luxurious lifestyle of these people and, shyly, naively, wants in on the fun. In the middle of the night, when Naima is woken up by mysterious sounds, she peeks through Sofia’s door and witnesses Andres perform oral sex on her cousin. The look of equal confusion and intrigue on Naima’s face tells us this is a life-changing moment in her life that she will never forget.
As I was watching the film — a slight, but incredibly watchable affair — I kept wondering if a male director could ever nail the subtleties Zlotowski achieves in her film. This is an honest film about a teenage girl’s sexual awakening through the naive eyes of Naima, her discovery of a sinful world she can’t fully grasp yet. The film depicts a growing lustful desire that isn’t patronized or simplified by Zlotowski
Even Sofia is wily and fascinating in her own right, a character who could have easily ventured into caricature in the hands of another filmmaker. Her plastic surgery, at first, gives the viewer a sense of mockery but as the movie goes along, nuances are revealed that weren’t apparent beforehand. In a particularly memorable scene, a hostess confronts and attempts to humiliate Sofia with a remark about her plastic surgery. Sofia never gives in to the bait, always smiling, smartly responding, and then moving on. It’s the kind of maturity that one wouldn’t expect from her, but Zlotowski slapped me sideways, I had now to rethink everything I thought I knew about this character.
I didn’t expect to be taken by “An Easy Girl,” but its beauty, its unadorned love for memorable summers, won me over. No doubt Zlotowski was influenced by the late great Eric Rohmer’s French tales of love, summer, and philosophic indulgences — you can feel his imprint all over “An Easy Girl.” Zlotowski is as attuned to what isn’t said as to what is said; there’s always a shade to every action, always a reason for every word. Her direction here is subdued but successfully rendered, even if the film starts to lose steam in its final coda. There isn’t really anything exceptional about this film, but maybe that’s why its charms win you over so easily.