French Postcards

(1979)

A bus filled with American students makes its way to a year-long immersion program in French at a private institute. The institute director (Marie-France Pisier) is escorting them. The story will focus on three of the students. One wants to compose music and signed up for the school to get out of Ohio and gain some life experience. Another has always been afraid to make decisions for himself, and picked this school as the safest from a short list mandated by his parents. The third is a girl who is more or less of an outcast who she hopes to see everything of cultural note in France, then spends all of her free time writing postcards to her boyfriend.

The would-be composer nearly has an affair with the headmistress. The shy young man meets Valerie Quinessen in a stationary shop, and ends up gaining a true love and a set of testicles in the process. Finally, the young women ends up with an adventurer, and sends her final French Postcard.

I enjoyed this coming-of-age film very much. The kids were not perfect, or masters of every situation, but did stupid things and jumped to wrong conclusions. In the end, however, they did the right things. In other words, they were real people. I would have enjoyed this film even without Valerie Quennessen, but her charming presence assured my enjoyment. She made very few films before her untimely death, and this was her breakout performance.

Scoop's note: I am with Tuna on this. The 5.8 at IMDb seems too low to both of us.

Although she stayed dressed, Quennessen does have pokies.

Marie-France Pisier shows breasts in a changing room.

 

enter the DragonScan

The Babysitters

2007

Youthful entrepreneurialism gone wrong.

Shirley Lyner (Katherine Waterston) is a high school junior planning for college. A good student, somewhat obsessive-compulsive, Shirley is being taken home after a babysitting job when things get slightly intense between her and the father, Michael (John Leguzamo). Although nothing actually happens, the result is she is paid 200 for the evening's work. Seeing a potential to earn some money, she does more babysitting jobs for him, and this time things do happen, each time earning her $200.

When Michael asks her to arrange "babysitting" services for a friend, Shirley realizes she has a growing business opportunity, so she recruits classmates and starts a babysitting service, keeping 20% of their fee. Business booms.

Needless to say, nothing good can come of married men using amateur teenage hookers, and when some of the girls begin to have misgivings, things begin to take a nasty turn.

I can't say I liked this movie much. It didn't really seem to have a message, there were no real "good guys" in it, and the ending, while ironic, wasn't particularly happy for anyone. I'm not saying this kind of thing couldn't happen, but it makes you question why they call grown men "adults".
 

Katherine Waterston