Honestly, most people remember 2013 for the big blockbusters, but if you were into French cinema, there was only one movie everyone was arguing about. I’m talking about François Ozon’s Jeune et Jolie, known to English speakers as the young and beautiful movie. It’s been well over a decade since it premiered at Cannes, and yet, the conversations around it haven't really cooled down. It's one of those films that refuses to give you the satisfaction of an easy answer.
You’ve probably seen the poster: Marine Vacth looking straight into the camera with a mix of defiance and total boredom. That’s basically the vibe of the whole film. It follows seventeen-year-old Isabelle over the course of four seasons, and it doesn't try to "fix" her or explain her away with a convenient childhood trauma.
What the Young and Beautiful Movie is Actually About
The plot is deceptively simple. Isabelle loses her virginity during a summer holiday. It’s not romantic. It’s not even particularly dramatic. It’s just... a thing that happens. When she gets back to Paris, she starts working as a high-end prostitute under the name Léa.
She isn't doing it for the money. Her family is wealthy. She isn't doing it because she’s being coerced. She just does it.
The Mystery of Isabelle
Critics like David Rooney and Derek Malcolm have spent years trying to figure out what drives her. Is it power? Is it a form of dissociation? Ozon himself has famously said that Isabelle is a mystery to him, too. He treats her like an entomologist looking at a rare bug. You’re watching her, but you aren't necessarily with her.
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The film is structured by four Françoise Hardy songs. If you know Hardy, you know her music is the peak of 1960s French melancholia.
- Summer: "L'amour d'un garçon"
- Autumn: "A quoi ça sert?"
- Winter: "Première rencontre"
- Spring: "Je suis moi"
Each song marks a shift in Isabelle’s life, but the "Why?" remains out of reach. Marine Vacth plays the role with this incredible, glassy stillness. She’s beautiful, sure, but there’s a hollowness there that’s actually pretty unsettling to watch.
Why Everyone Gets the Ending Wrong
People often get hung up on the "scandalous" part of the young and beautiful movie—the age gap, the money, the hotels. But the real gut-punch happens in the final act. When one of her regular clients, an elderly man named Georges, dies of a heart attack during one of their sessions, Isabelle’s double life implodes.
Her mother, Sylvie (played by Géraldine Pailhas), finds out, and the family falls apart. But not in the way you’d expect. There’s a scene where Isabelle is seeing a therapist, and she basically says she did it because it felt like a game. She liked the feeling of it later, when she was back in her normal life, thinking about what she’d done.
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The Charlotte Rampling Cameo
The very end of the movie features the legendary Charlotte Rampling. She plays the widow of the man who died. It’s a quiet, strange scene. They meet in a hotel room—the same kind of room where Isabelle worked. They don't scream. They don't fight. They just sit there. Some viewers found it confusing, but it’s really about the passing of the torch. It’s a meditation on what happens when that "young and beautiful" phase starts to slip away.
The Lana Del Rey Confusion
If you search for "young and beautiful movie" today, you’re almost guaranteed to run into Lana Del Rey. Her song of the same name was the centerpiece of Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby, which came out the exact same year as Ozon’s film.
It’s a funny coincidence because both the song and the French movie deal with the exact same anxiety: Will you still love me when I'm no longer young and beautiful?
While Lana was singing about Daisy Buchanan’s desperate need for validation in 1920s Long Island, Ozon was showing a modern teenager who seemed to care about nothing at all. One is maximalist and operatic; the other is cold and minimalist. But they’re two sides of the same coin.
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Is It Worth a Rewatch?
Look, this isn't a "feel-good" movie. It’s uncomfortable. It’s cold. It’s very French. But it’s also one of the most honest depictions of that weird, liminal space between being a kid and being an adult.
Most coming-of-age movies want to tell you that everything will be okay once you find yourself. Jeune et Jolie suggests that maybe you never "find" yourself—you just keep changing skins until you land on one that fits for a while.
Actionable Takeaways for Cinephiles
If you're planning to dive into this film or the genre, here is how to get the most out of the experience:
- Watch for the Mirrors: Ozon uses reflections constantly. It’s a visual cue for Isabelle’s dissociation. Count how many times she looks at herself versus how many times she looks at others.
- Listen to the Lyrics: Don't just skip the Françoise Hardy tracks. The lyrics are essentially the internal monologue that Isabelle refuses to give us.
- Compare with 'Belle de Jour': If you really want to see where Ozon got his inspiration, watch Luis Buñuel’s 1967 classic. It’s the spiritual grandmother of this film.
- Context Matters: Remember that the film is about a specific type of Parisian "bourgeois" boredom. It’s not meant to represent every teenager’s experience.
The young and beautiful movie isn't going to give you a moral lesson. It won't tell you that prostitution is "bad" or "empowering." It just shows you a girl who is 17, bored, and testing the limits of her own power. And honestly? That’s why we’re still talking about it.