I didn't expect much from this movie, I must say I liked it quite a lot. Sabine, a young mathematics genius (maybe more "uncommonly talented for mathematics" than "genius") living in the poor part of Lille (the main french north city) discovers love and sex with an older man, a theater author who comes from czekia. Sabine gets foolish, makes great mistakes, is both cruel and innocent, disturbs all her life and gets out of her destiny... There is maybe not a lot more to tell about this movie except that the acting is never false, even the teenagers part - french movies, very often, are not very good when they talk about teenagers but this one is really ok. I gave it a 9/10.
3 Reviews
Worth seeing
lazarillo6 October 2014
This movie is a about a 15-year-old female math prodigy with a severely messed-up home life. She charges her classmates for helping them with their homework--or sometimes outright doing their it for them--but because she's pretty much the sole breadwinner in her welfare-dependent, gambling-addicted family, she also commits other petty crime like stealing from waiters in cafes. She gets caught by a man she keeps improbably running into and who she thinks is a cop, but who turns out to be Czechslavokian playwright. She impulsively prostitutes herself to him, even though she is still a virgin, and they fall in love even as she prepares to go to Belgium for a international math competition.
At first blush this looks like another French "lolita" movie kind of along the lines of "36 Fillete", "White Wedding", or "The Little Thief". It is a little better than some of the others though. It's told from the perspective of the young girl (i.e. from the perspective of "Lolita" rather "Humbert Humbert"), which is kind of refreshing and--if it had been directed by someone like Catherine Breillat--might even be considered feminist. The actress Julie Delarme was somewhat older than her teenage character, so rather than brief nude scenes the movie shows more graphic sex (stronger than "White Wedding" or "The Little Thief", which had younger teenage actresses, if not as strong as other movies like "To My Sister" or "Blue is the Warmest Color"). This would make it more acceptable in America where 18 year olds can do hardcore porn, but people get upset if a 17 year old casually displays her breasts.
What kind of annoys me about these movies though is how worldly, sophisticated, and precocious they always make the adolescent protagonist. Of course, they're physically attractive since they're played by older actresses (or 17-year-old beauties like Vannesa Paradis in "White Wedding"), but real teens are much more immature and bratty and don't have dialogue written for them by adult screenwriters. The precociousness of this character though is at least explained by her mathematical brilliance, and it's more clear why she would be alienated from her peers and her family and drawn to a much older man. And she does at times act really impulsively, like when she sees her lover with another woman and files potentially disastrous statutory rape charges against him (wow, they HAVE statutory rape in France--I never would have guessed from their movies). Strangely enough, his movie kind of reminded me of "Baxter" where you have a highly intelligent dog that nevertheless still acts like a dog a lot of the time.
I also appreciate that the grasp this movie has on math is slightly better than "Mean Girls" at least. This is worth seeing.
At first blush this looks like another French "lolita" movie kind of along the lines of "36 Fillete", "White Wedding", or "The Little Thief". It is a little better than some of the others though. It's told from the perspective of the young girl (i.e. from the perspective of "Lolita" rather "Humbert Humbert"), which is kind of refreshing and--if it had been directed by someone like Catherine Breillat--might even be considered feminist. The actress Julie Delarme was somewhat older than her teenage character, so rather than brief nude scenes the movie shows more graphic sex (stronger than "White Wedding" or "The Little Thief", which had younger teenage actresses, if not as strong as other movies like "To My Sister" or "Blue is the Warmest Color"). This would make it more acceptable in America where 18 year olds can do hardcore porn, but people get upset if a 17 year old casually displays her breasts.
What kind of annoys me about these movies though is how worldly, sophisticated, and precocious they always make the adolescent protagonist. Of course, they're physically attractive since they're played by older actresses (or 17-year-old beauties like Vannesa Paradis in "White Wedding"), but real teens are much more immature and bratty and don't have dialogue written for them by adult screenwriters. The precociousness of this character though is at least explained by her mathematical brilliance, and it's more clear why she would be alienated from her peers and her family and drawn to a much older man. And she does at times act really impulsively, like when she sees her lover with another woman and files potentially disastrous statutory rape charges against him (wow, they HAVE statutory rape in France--I never would have guessed from their movies). Strangely enough, his movie kind of reminded me of "Baxter" where you have a highly intelligent dog that nevertheless still acts like a dog a lot of the time.
I also appreciate that the grasp this movie has on math is slightly better than "Mean Girls" at least. This is worth seeing.
I'd rather have cosine.
dbdumonteil25 September 2002
The title has a double meaning:the heroin likes tangent best because she's in love with maths.But her family is so wretched that she wants to make off (=prendre la tangente).
Nothing to get hung about though:the umpteenth story of young high school girl who falls in love with a forty-something brimming with Slavonic charm.Except for the numerous erotic scenes,that could fit the bill for such "nice" French made-for-TV series ,the likes of "Madame le Proviseur".Directing remains academic,and acting conventional,as far the two leads are concerned.
Interest lies elsewhere:Marie-Christine Barrault is very convincing as a generous maths teacher;Agnès Soral and mainly classy Malavoy are cast against type as two proles always fearing the bailiff.Too bad the relationship whizz kid heroine/ moronic parents is only skimmed over.
The dialogue,when it does not integrate maths in its lines remains trite and dull.But when the heroine says that her " derivative" turns negative that her lover is her "vector" or when she uses the probability in her father's problems it's pretty original.
If I remember well,the curve of the tangent function sometimes.tends towards infinity whereas the cosine one endlessly goes up and down:that's why I'd rather have cosine to describe this movie which fluctuates between bad and good.
Nothing to get hung about though:the umpteenth story of young high school girl who falls in love with a forty-something brimming with Slavonic charm.Except for the numerous erotic scenes,that could fit the bill for such "nice" French made-for-TV series ,the likes of "Madame le Proviseur".Directing remains academic,and acting conventional,as far the two leads are concerned.
Interest lies elsewhere:Marie-Christine Barrault is very convincing as a generous maths teacher;Agnès Soral and mainly classy Malavoy are cast against type as two proles always fearing the bailiff.Too bad the relationship whizz kid heroine/ moronic parents is only skimmed over.
The dialogue,when it does not integrate maths in its lines remains trite and dull.But when the heroine says that her " derivative" turns negative that her lover is her "vector" or when she uses the probability in her father's problems it's pretty original.
If I remember well,the curve of the tangent function sometimes.tends towards infinity whereas the cosine one endlessly goes up and down:that's why I'd rather have cosine to describe this movie which fluctuates between bad and good.
See also
Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews
