In this wonderfully tender, autobiographical corning-of-age story, a precocious young girl made wise beyond her years from a bohemian upbringing is forced to adjust when she enters a wealthy private school. Stella’s parents run a working-class bar filled with a revolving mix of artists, vagrants, and drunks, so though she is flunking out of school, she has gained an alternate education in card games, cocktails, and pop music. Her world-weary attitude writes off most of her classmates as impossibly dull. The one exception is her new friend Gladys, who introduces Stella to Cocteau and Balzac, and awakens a desire to escape the dissolute home life that continually threatens to drag her down. The film features stunning cinematography, with an ethereal light that makes even the grimy bar floors and wood-paneled hotel rooms look like beautiful postcards from a bygone era, and is backed by a superb instrumental soundtrack infused with French disco hits. But the true standout is newcomer Léora Barbara, whose multifaceted performance as the wryly philosophical Stella is both prickly and lovable, a charming outsider you desperately want to succeed.
Comment, Film includes strong language, some sexual suggestive scenes, violence, and adults frequently smoking and drinking.
