lazarillo The French have strong tradition of literature and classy art films (even though they have also made as much crap as anyone else). However, I don't know if it's the influence of television, but last 10 or 15 years or so they have started making more and more films like this about "social problems"--that almost look like they could have appeared on the Lifetime channel in the US (at least if you took out all the nudity). Don't get me wrong this is a lot better than a Lifetime movie (thus the high IMDb rating and generally positive reviews), but like a lot of other recent French movies I've seen such as "Alive", "Student Services", and "Elles", it seems more interested in sending a "social message"--in this case about teen prostitution--than it is in being a coming-of-age film about a singular female character (the kind of film Catherine Breillat has really specialized in with films like "36 Fillette" and "To My Sister"). I obviously prefer the latter.This is the story of two naïve teenage girls (Maud Forget and Lou Doillon)who are manipulated by their boyfriends into becoming prostitutes (performing oral sex on lines of guys in the bathroom stalls of local parks) in order to finance a trip to Latin America. This is all a little less than believable, not because such things don't happen in real life, but because of the actresses involved. Maud Forget is just really, really cute, but Lou Doillon (the daughter of British beauty Jane Birkin) despite her "unconventional" facial features, looks like a tall, teenage supermodel, which is basically what she was at the time. Just about any teenage boy in real-life would probably be very intimidated by girls like these, and not be manipulating them into low-rent prostitution. (Now, if they were being preyed on by older adult "modeling agents", I could see it). I'm always generally suspicious about movies where teenage girls are naïve and innocent, yet the boys about the same age seem overly clever and evil. It just doesn't ring true.Maud Forget is really good in this, despite being only about 16 or 17 herself at the time, and to the extent this movie works, it is because of her. Doillon has had much more of her subsequent career, possibly because of her family connections (her father is a director and her half-sister is Charlotte Gainsbourg), but she is miscast and not particularly effective here. She can play "ugly" as she did in "Saint Ange" or a man-eating sex bomb as did in "Sisters" and "Summer Things", but she just doesn't do "ordinary" very well. This might be worth seeing, but I didn't like it as much as a lot of other people did.

runamokprods I had mixed feelings. This is a well acted tale of teenage love gone wrong. A sweet, innocent 14 year old girl ends up prostituting herself (and her best friend) for her tortured, disturbed boyfriend, in the name of love. Chilling, disturbing, and real (based on a true story), and without the self-conscious exploitation of a film like 'Kids'. But in the end something seemed missing – a deeper theme, or a larger truth. I buy that kids do insane things in the name of love, caught in hormonal rushes, but somehow the film didn't transcend that one obvious notion. It's almost like it didn't take it's own story seriously enough. There was even something a little Hollywood-cliché about it, despite all its extremity. Especially the very familiar 'good' nerdy boy she 'should' like. Most critics I respect liked it more than I, so maybe I'll revisit some day.

SurDreamer What a movie... I just watched this movie once, a cold night making zapping with the TV and I saw this title (In my country they named it "The end of the innocence"), and I began watching expecting to be a tragic teenager drama... and French. What I saw totally turned me up. It begins like a normal teen movie and suddenly it begins to change its way. It ain't about a silly blonde haired girl, but about this shy little Delphin (I got to say that Maud Forget just stole my heart), who feels solitary, alone, bored, confused, and when meets her new school-partner Olivia begins to think about a new world, to find it out. Then the other Mauvaises Frèquentations appear. The apparition of her love changes the whole movie: she feels different, more open, more happy. And it is really emotional when you see all she does just for her loved one, how she looses her way. The conclusion, at least for me, is that this little Delphine just doesn't realize of nothing, learns nothing, as if it hadn't been a hard experience, and just waits for the next Laurent to come... but thinking a bit better about her friend.Oh,and since I saw it for the first and only time I have been trying to get a copy of it but I had never able to. Does any of you know where can I get one?

sistermargarette I like French movies a lot, and I like racy content however, this movie is silly. Reality check: If Laurent was a destitute heroin junkie badly in need of a fix and Delphine was an abused run-away with no family to turn to for help, I might have had some chance of accepting this movie's plot. There are so many other better French movies out there, try Jean-Luc Godard instead of this.