Fifteen-year-old Elena (Roxane Mesquida) is on summer vacation in France with her mother (Arsinée Khanjian), father (Romain Goupil), and twelve-year-old sister Anaïs (Anaïs Reboux). The two girls relate to each other on two currents — nice and nasty. The attractive Elena views Anaïs as a ball and chain around her neck. The younger sister, who has a glandular problem and is overweight, doesn't think much of Elena's "loose morals."
One day in a café, they meet Fernando (Libero De Rienzo), an Italian law student. He falls hard and fast for the lovely Elena and starts necking with her as Anaïs nervously looks on while scarfing down an ice cream sundae.
The next night Fernando slips into the bedroom the sisters share and seduces Elena while Anaïs lies in the next bed with her back turned. Although the fifteen-year-old is frightened of losing her virginity, she succumbs to the sexually experienced Fernando's smooth talking the next day.
French writer and director Catherine Breillat tries very hard to startle us with the explicitness of Fernando's exploitation of the inexperienced Elena. Although the director does a remarkable job drawing out the tensions and the competitiveness between the two adolescent sisters, she steps over the line with a shocking and gratuitously violent finale to the film that comes across as yet another sign of the lingering legacy of Quentin Tarantino (Pulp Fiction).
(Screened at the 39th New York Film Festival)
