There is no doubt Ariel Besse is a pretty woman. I should say "girl," because she's supposed to be a 14-year-old in here who is having an affair with her 30- year-old stepfather. With that for a theme, I'm afraid this film is an allurement to perverts looking for some cheap thrills. Fortunately, it doesn't play as sleazy as it sounds and there is no actual sex shown. However, I still couldn't help but feel uncomfortable watching this, especially since Besse was about that age when she made the film and appears bare-breasted several times. Allowing their 15-year old daughter to be nude and passionately kissing an older man in a movie like this is a sad comment about Besse's parents. Interesting that most of the positive reviews here come from California. No wonder Michael Jackson liked it out there! Anyway, looking at this strictly from a film standpoint, it was a well-made movie, which was photographed decently, too. The French do make nice-looking movies, and it's not a boring story despite an abundance of nothing but talk. It's a decent story but......but this whole thing is wrong so I can't recommend this film.

Spoilers herein.Nabokov's "Lolita" is a milestone in literature -- the narrator is obsessed to the point where anything he says is at least synthesized out of that obsession and at worse fabricated. It is only about sex in so far as giving a focus to the obsession of being.Here we have a very clever converse. Yes we have the stepdaughter, the "artistic" stepfather widowed by a car wreck and the copulation between the two. We have a child with the flue, and a key message delivered in writing. Performance permeates.The difference between that message in the book and this film mirrors the difference between the perspective of the two. In "Lolita," the reading of the diary comes immediately before the accident and is unintended. Here it comes immediately after and is.The story this time is from the girl's perspective. She is the one with the obsession and the seductive initiative. It is he that is wrapped up in performance and who is tempted away by a superior performer. Just this depth of understanding of such a radical experiment in narrative colors this film as something worth watching. (The designated watcher in this version is the redheaded wife of a fellow musician.)But otherwise, the film is a pedestrian affair. A few titillations, a few comedic moments, some sweetness. In other words, it carries all the baggage of a normal French film. It is bereft of, say, the lepidopteran -- or similar -- metaphors, the constant shifts in narrative layers (by this time, 1981, by no means experimental) and the references outside the film.Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 4: Worth watching.

Please! Give me a break. The cast is dead, stiff and waxy looking. A weak premise that she is so demanding, that no one could deny her, is preposterious. This film is not erotic. It had to be made by 10-year-olds. What a waste of time, not to mention celloid.

Blier is not my favorite French director. Too much irony and too much Godard-a-like in his films. But this one is very different. It's written with great intelligence and, like in most of the French Cinema, it had a wonderful sense of reality. The subject is touchy : a man falls in love with a young teenager (14 years old). But here, we have not the classic Lolita. The young girl looks realistic, and so is her feelings. Superb acting and a great musical score.