Young & Old

The French chronicle the cycle of life:

YOUNG & BEAUTIFUL (A-minus) - There may be a few directors out there I'd rank higher, but no one tells a story on screen like Francois Ozon.

For much of the running time of this seemingly standard coming-of-age film, the narrative rarely rises above ordinary. Isabelle (Marine Vacth), a 17-year-old beauty, spends a summer vacation at the beach with her family. She chooses a German boy, Felix, to give up her virginity to, and the event is unsurprisingly underwhelming for her.

Suddenly, she starts sneaking out of her parents' house and turning tricks with mostly older gentlemen in a ritzy hotel. The segue is jarring. Redubbed Lea, she still doesn't enjoy the act of sex very much. But somehow she finds a sense of liberation. Just as she seems to be growing comfortable with her body and her skills, something goes tragically wrong with her favorite john, an elderly man she actually has developed feelings for. Isabelle's double life is exposed. And the movie finally gains texture.

The parents become fleshed out. Sylvie (Geraldine Pailhas) must finally deal with her daughter as a complex person. Sad-faced stepfather Patrick (the compelling Frederic Pierrot from "Polisse" and "I've Loved You So Long") mostly tries to stay out of the way and out of trouble.

Ozon crafts a series of small subtle twists in the final 20 minutes, a succession of false endings that grow more and more intriguing. Finally, Ozon brings it all home with a clever sleight of hand, involving a legendary actress who not only lends gravitas to the proceedings but also subconsciously reminds us of her own sensual early work. It's a brilliant touch.

Stream it for the cheap sex, stay for the compelling drama.

(NOTE: Here's our list of our favorite Ozon films.)

ON MY WAY (B+) - The legendary actress mentioned above is not Catherine Deneuve; here she is commanding as a grandmother, feeling suddenly rudderless, who sets off on a road trip around France, not necessarily searching but just wandering.

Deneuve plays Bettie, a former Miss Brittany (1969), previously widowed now freshly dumped by her boyfriend, who walks out of her restaurant during the lunch rush and away from the aged mother she lives with, hitting the road just to get lost.

Written and directed by Emmanuelle Bercot, who (symmetry!) co-wrote "Polisse," "On My Way" has a shambling nature not unlike our favorite film of 2012 and a verite feel from an ensemble cast that buzzes in and out of Bettie's world. It's a lackadaisical victory of sorts for this icon of French cinema, who feels more human here than she ever has.

After drinking and smoking and snogging a bit too much on her little bender (a man about half her age tells her "You must have been gorgeous when you were young"), Bettie gets a call from her estranged daughter, asking Bettie to drive her boy, Charly (Nemo Schiffman), to his other grandfather's place a good day's drive away. The second half of the film thus settles in with Bettie and her adolescent ward.

Charly is a showy smart mouth who acts like a brat but quickly bonds with the grandmother he hardly knows. He encourages her to attend a reunion of the regional beauty queens of 1969, an invitation she has been shunning, wary of revisiting the era. Their journey is a satisfying one, as Bettie soldiers on, trying to shut out the intermittent news from home suggesting that her restaurant is on the brink of failure.

Bercot brings much of the cast together at the end, essentially an overtime session which reminds us that the movie is about 15 minutes too long. We get a reveal from Bettie's past, connected to that regional competition 45 years earlier; it spills out during an argument and lands with a thud. An unsatisfying happy ending wraps up the proceedings with a spoonful of sugar.

It's all about the journey, not the destination.