Lili (Isild Le Besco) is a nineteen-year-old art student who lives with her father in Paris during the 1970s. She is bored with her bourgeois existence and has just broken up with her boyfriend. Lili's proper sister sees her as quite a rebel and has tried unsuccessfully to tame her.
At a nightclub with a friend, Lili looks across the room and sees Bada (Ouassini Embarek), an intense young man originally from Morocco. They have sex and after he leaves, she sketches a portrait of him and puts it on the wall of her bedroom. He is everything she has dreamed of in a lover — tall, dark, and from another world than the one she inhabits.
Bada is actually a criminal and during a bank robbery, things go wrong and a clerk is killed along with one of the robbers. Lili decides to leave behind her tepid existence and accompany Bada and his partner in crime when they flee the city. Along with his friend's girlfriend, they take a train and begin one perilous transition after another at the borders of Spain and Greece. Lili sketches various scenes from her life as a fugitive, and there are relaxing interludes at posh places paid for with the money from the robbery. The women stash the loot in their pantyhose, and Baba and his at times violent buddy keep more in their trousers.
When Lili is questioned by customs officials in Greece, the others leave her. A good Samaritan helps her out since she has no money or luggage. Then a woman befriends her, gives her a room, and gets her a job at shop where she works. Lili believes that Bada will return as he promised when she asked him what would happen if they ever got separated.
A Tout De Suite (Right Now) is directed by Benoit Jacquot and loosely based on a memoir of Elisabeth Fanger. This black-and-white French film succeeds because of the erotic screen presence of Isild Le Besco who previously lit up the screen in Girls Can't Swim and Sade. Lili actively seeks out a life of danger and adventure. She learns a lot about herself and her compulsive desires on the road. And the mystery of love is explored from many different perspectives as her emotions go through various stages. This film depicts one young woman's escape into a world of wild love, danger, freedom, and adventure.
