''An Easy Girl'' () is a 2019 French

comedy-drama Comedy drama (also known by the portmanteau dramedy) is a hybrid genre of works that combine elements of comedy and Drama (film and television), drama. In film, as well as scripted television series, serious dramatic subjects (such as death, il ...

film directed by

Rebecca Zlotowski Rebecca Zlotowski (; born 21 April 1980) is a French film director and screenwriter. Early life Zlotowski is of Poland, Polish-Morocco, Moroccan descent. Her father, Michel Zlotowski, is an English-French interpreter, while her Moroccan (born in ...

, who co-wrote the screenplay with

Teddy Lussi-Modeste Teddy Lussi-Modeste (born 25 March 1978) is a French Romani people in France, Romani film director, screenwriter and literature teacher. He wrote and directed the films ''Jimmy Rivière'' (2011), ''The Price of Success (2017 film), The Price of ...

. It stars Mina Farid,

Zahia Dehar Zahia Dehar (born 25 February 1992) is an Algerian-French model, actress, fashion and lingerie designer, and former sex worker. Dehar is best known for having been involved in a sex scandal involving footballers at a time when she was an undera ...

Benoît Magimel Benoît Magimel (; born 11 May 1974) is a French actor. He was 14 when he appeared in his first film, and has starred in a variety of roles in French cinema. At age 16, Magimel left school to pursue acting as a career. In 2001, he won the Best A ...

Clotilde Courau Clotilde Marie Pascale di Savoia, Princess of Venice (née Clotilde Marie Pascale Courau; born 3 April 1969) is a French actress. She was married to Emanuele Filiberto di Savoia, Montgomery-Massingberd, Hugh. Burke's Royal Families of the World ...

and

Nuno Lopes Nuno Miguel Pereira Lopes (born 6 May 1978) is a Portuguese actor and DJ. He's internationally known for his role in ''Saint George'', the Portuguese entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 90th Academy Awards, and most recently for h ...

. Set in summertime in

Cannes Cannes (, ; , ; ) is a city located on the French Riviera. It is a communes of France, commune located in the Alpes-Maritimes departments of France, department, and host city of the annual Cannes Film Festival, Midem, and Cannes Lions Internatio ...

, the film follows a 16-year-old girl who is drawn into her visiting cousin's free-spirited lifestyle, despite warnings from her concerned best friend. It had its world premiere in the

Directors' Fortnight The Directors' Fortnight (, formerly ) is an independent section held in parallel to the Cannes Film Festival. It was started in 1969 by the French Directors Guild after the events of May 1968 resulted in cancellation of the Cannes festival as a ...

section of the

2019 Cannes Film Festival The 72nd annual Cannes Film Festival took place from 14 to 25 May 2019. Mexican filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu served as jury president for the main competition. South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho won the , the festival's top prize, fo ...

, where it won the SACD Award for Best French-language Film.

Plot

Naïma is a naive high school student who lives with her mother in a modest apartment in

and has recently celebrated her 16th birthday. While figuring out her future, she is due to start a summer internship as a chef in the kitchen of the upscale hotel where her mother works as a chambermaid, but she is still unsure about it. She also plans to audition for a school play alongside her gay best friend and classmate Dodo, an aspiring actor. Naïma's voluptuous 22-year-old cousin Sofia arrives unexpectedly from Paris to spend the summer holidays with her. Naïma finds herself intrigued by Sofia's free-spirited lifestyle, and Sofia becomes a mentor to Naïma, sharing some of her cynical and hedonistic views on life and relationships, including her rejection of romantic love in favour of sensations and adventures. As a birthday gift, Sofia gives Naïma a baby-pink

Chanel Chanel ( , ) is a French luxury fashion house founded in 1910 by Coco Chanel in Paris. It is privately owned by French brothers, Alain and Gérard Wertheimer, through the holding company Chanel Limited, established in 2018 and headquarte ...

handbag to match her own. At a nightclub, Naïma and Sofia meet two older men: Andrès, a wealthy Brazilian businessman and art collector, and his French friend and assistant Philippe, who invite the girls onto their yacht that is docked at the marina, with Dodo tagging along. When Dodo's friends loudly call out to him outside the yacht, Sofia and Stewart, a staff member, both demand that he send his friends away. Dodo argues with Sofia, accusing her of using her body for material gain, before leaving with his friends. Sofia and Andrès flirt with each other and retreat to his cabin. Later, Naïma wanders through the yacht and witnesses Sofia and Andrès having sex, though Sofia remains indifferent. The next morning, the cousins go to a high-end boutique and buy expensive items on Andrès's tab. One night, Naïma goes to a tattoo studio and gets the same "''

carpe diem () is a Latin aphorism, usually translated "seize the day", taken from book 1 of the Roman poet Horace's work '' Odes'' (23 BC). Translation is the second-person singular present active imperative of '' carpō'' "pick or pluck" used by Ho ...

''"

lower-back tattoo Tattoos on the lower back became popular in the first decade of the 21st century, and gained a reputation for their erotic appeal. The tattoos were sometimes accentuated by low-rise jeans or crop tops. Their popularity was in part due to the in ...

as Sofia's. On the day of her scheduled audition with Dodo, Naïma instead joins Sofia, Andrès and Philippe on a yacht trip to Italy, where they have lunch at the villa of Calypso, Philippe's wealthy friend. Sofia impresses Calypso with her knowledge of the literary works of

Marguerite Duras Marguerite Germaine Marie Donnadieu (, 4 April 1914 – 3 March 1996), known as Marguerite Duras (), was a French novelist, playwright, screenwriter, essayist, and experimental filmmaker. Her script for the film ''Hiroshima mon amour'' (1959) ea ...

, before Calypso makes an offhand remark about Sofia's plastic surgery. Naïma develops an unlikely friendship with Philippe, and on the trip back to Cannes, he kindly rejects her advances. That night, Andrès accuses the cousins of stealing a valuable antique

sextant A sextant is a doubly reflecting navigation instrument that measures the angular distance between two visible objects. The primary use of a sextant is to measure the angle between an astronomical object and the horizon for the purposes of cel ...

and has Stewart throw them out of the yacht. Naïma insists that they prove their innocence, but Sofia tells her to leave her alone and walks away. Philippe observes Andrès placing the sextant back into its box, appalled at his behaviour, but Andrès is nonchalant. Naïma finds Dodo at a nightclub, and he initially rebuffs her, but they quickly make peace as he reveals that he has passed his audition. Returning home in the morning, Naïma finds that Sofia has left without telling her. Before Philippe departs, Naïma goes to say goodbye to him; he assures her that he knows that she is not a thief and tells her that she has "tremendous value". Naïma receives an email from Sofia saying she has moved to London and is happy. Three months later, Naïma is now training to become a chef. She decides to sell the expensive items she had purchased with Sofia, but keeps her Chanel bag as a souvenir.

Cast

* Mina Farid as Naïma *

as Sofia *

as Philippe *

as Andrès *

as Calypso *

Loubna Abidar Loubna Abidar (born 20 September 1985) is a Moroccan actress. Career Abidar was born in Marrakesh to a Berber father and an Arab mother. She made her film debut in ''Much Loved'', which was directed by Nabil Ayouch. The film was banned in 2015 ...

as Dounia, Naïma's mother * "Riley" Lakdhar Dridi as Dodo * Henri-Noël Tabary as Stewart

Production

Development

drew inspiration from an article written in the first person about two young women who spent time with married men on a yacht on the

French Riviera The French Riviera, known in French as the (; , ; ), is the Mediterranean coastline of the southeast corner of France. There is no official boundary, but it is considered to be the coastal area of the Alpes-Maritimes department, extending fr ...

; the men would lavish the women with gifts and dinner in exchange for their company. Zlotowski, who had long been intrigued by

, cast her to star in the film after she liked one of Zlotowski's

Instagram Instagram is an American photo sharing, photo and Short-form content, short-form video sharing social networking service owned by Meta Platforms. It allows users to upload media that can be edited with Social media camera filter, filters, be ...

posts. Zlotowski wrote the screenplay in three weeks.

Filming

Principal photography Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production. Personnel Besides the main film personnel, such as the ...

took place in

. Scenes where also shot at the

Domaine du Rayol The Domaine du Rayol (20 hectares), also known as the Jardin botanique du Rayol and the Parc botanique à Rayol-Canadel-sur-Mer, is a botanical garden and arboretum located on the Avenue des Belges, Rayol-Canadel-sur-Mer, Var (department), Var, P ...

Rayol-Canadel-sur-Mer Rayol-Canadel-sur-Mer (; ) is a commune in the Var department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in southeastern France. It comprises two small villages: Le Rayol and Canadel. They are situated along the D559 which goes along the coast a ...

in July 2018 over two days, where the poster was photographed.

Reception

The film was released on

Netflix Netflix is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple lang ...

in the United States on 14 August 2020, and was the 10th most watched film on the platform on its debut weekend. On the

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews and ratings of products and services, such as films, books, video games, music, software, hardware, or cars. This system then stores the reviews to be used for supporting a website where user ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of .

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, which uses a

weighted average The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...

, assigned the film a score of 79 out of 100, based on reviews from 9 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.

References

External links