‘Une Fille Facile’ Review: Zahia Dehar as ‘An Easy Girl’ shines in lighthearted French film on complex issues
Spoilers for ‘Une Fille Facile’ or ‘An Easy Girl’
Rebecca Zlotowski’s fourth film, ‘Une Fille Facile’, is unfairly categorized as a comedy. It’s lighthearted. It’s the cool breeze of the French Riviera, where it is set. But it’s also complex, in a way that it juggles (and expertly so) many ideas with nuance. Calling ‘Une Fille Facile’, or to use its English translation, ‘An Easy Girl’, a comedy is reductive. Then again, it is exactly what Zlotowski claimed it to be: “I’ve done a few things that are more like complex films about simple ideas, but now I wanted the opposite.”
The film follows and is narrated by Naima (played by newcomer Mina Farid), a 16-year-old who lives in Cannes. During the summer, her cousin Sofia (Zahia Dehar) arrives from Paris with her Chanel bags, her tanned Gallic good looks, her loud sexuality, and a whole lot of affection for her young cousin. If Farid is the storyteller, Dehar is the story.
Dehar is an explosive presence who enters the film in a scene reminiscent of Eric Rohmer’s ‘La Collectionneuse’ with some baggage from outside the silver screen. A little more than a decade ago, Dehar woke up to find her picture on the front of France’s newspapers as an underage girl caught up in a prostitution scandal involving members of the national football squad. She was an escort for player Franck Ribéry and just 17 at the time of the incident. But Dehar did not let the sordid affair stop her. She went on to become a successful model, lingerie designer and actor.
In real life, Dehar exudes a kind of confidence and nonchalance that’s hard to find. In the film, it would seem that Dehar only added to that. In one scene, after the two get slut-shamed by a pair of boys who did not receive any attention from them, Naima loses her temper. But a calm (and positively unaffected) Sofia tells her, “I’m not interested in love, I like sensations and adventure.” Sofia is the titular “easy girl”. But neither the film nor Naima's gaze judge her choices, even if they don’t celebrate it.
Naima observes Sofia befriend a suave Brazilian art dealer called Andres (played to perfection by Nuno Lopes). As Sofia and Andres engage in casual romance, Naima befriends Andres’ friend and fixer, Philippe (Benoit Magimel). The four spend several weeks engaging in the rich hedonistic pleasures the French Riviera has to offer.
With a French coming-of-age film like this, there is always a fear of themes of exploitation. After all, ‘Lolita’ is a cultural staple. But ‘Une Fille Facile’ avoids that with ease and does something a male director would have likely been incapable of. The film takes the cliché of a blonde bimbo and imbibes her with intelligence, compassion, and strength.
But ‘Une Fille Facile’, despite some non-traditional approaches, is every bit as French as one expects it to be. For one, it is gorgeous, and not just in its scenery. Rather, it is how it presents the scenery -- whether it is the striking blue-green of the sea, the soothing sky, the neon lights in a club, or just the calm and cozy streets. It’s a visual delight only made better by its light touch on heavy topics -- some philosophical musings, some societal thorns. It’s easy to forget where you are while watching this film.
‘Une Fille Facile’ or ‘An Easy Girl’ was screened in the Directors' Fortnight section at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the SACD Award for Best French-language Film. The film is available for viewing on Netflix.
