"À Tout de Suite (Right Now)" breathlessly recreates the New Wave/Nouvelle Vague style as a way to very effectively provide the female point of view parallel to the more violent American films Malick's "Badlands" and Spielberg's "Sugarland Express" that also portray chases inspired by true stories of the same period. But by filming in black and white, writer/director Benoît Jacquot is able to seamlessly incorporate period mise en scene backgrounds.
Isild Le Besco, a young, gorgeous actress with a surprisingly long resume, fearlessly portrays Every Mother's Nightmare of a restless, rebellious teen, filmed like an older, blonder, distaff bourgeois version of the boy in Truffaut's "The Four Hundred Blows." She quickly moves from cutting classes and experimenting with drugs and sex to the thrill-seeking of realized fantasies in being on the lam with an exotic boyfriend.
Ouassini Embarek appropriately come across like a Moroccan James Dean and her exploration of his family and roots is an unique feature of this genre.
One advantage of setting the story firmly in the 1970's as it happened is the close encounters of experiences like those that more viciously victimize today's European girls on the loose, as in "Lilja 4-ever," only terrifyingly threaten as she is able to be surprisingly resourceful, if well, flexible.
The director does communicate that actions that are innocent explorations between teens take a more menacing turn when an adult is involved, but she is more manipulative than any American filmmaker, since Scorcese's "Taxi Driver," would probably portray teen girls in parlaying their sexuality for survival on her terms, though sometimes her long stretches of passivity are slow and frustrating in between the action generated by the repetition of the titular call to arms.
The music of Tangerine Dream in particular on the soundtrack helps reinforce fears with a slightly sinister leitmotif, and the rest of the European period pop music is atmospherically selected.
Jacquot stays sympathetic to her point of view through to the end, even if the lessons she has learned seem more from a reality TV show or the criminal satire "From Noon Till Three" than a mother might wish while a parent's over-reactive lesson might be: Lock up your daughters! Close-ups are a bit over-used, but they reinforce her adolescent self-centeredness.
Isild Le Besco, a young, gorgeous actress with a surprisingly long resume, fearlessly portrays Every Mother's Nightmare of a restless, rebellious teen, filmed like an older, blonder, distaff bourgeois version of the boy in Truffaut's "The Four Hundred Blows." She quickly moves from cutting classes and experimenting with drugs and sex to the thrill-seeking of realized fantasies in being on the lam with an exotic boyfriend.
Ouassini Embarek appropriately come across like a Moroccan James Dean and her exploration of his family and roots is an unique feature of this genre.
One advantage of setting the story firmly in the 1970's as it happened is the close encounters of experiences like those that more viciously victimize today's European girls on the loose, as in "Lilja 4-ever," only terrifyingly threaten as she is able to be surprisingly resourceful, if well, flexible.
The director does communicate that actions that are innocent explorations between teens take a more menacing turn when an adult is involved, but she is more manipulative than any American filmmaker, since Scorcese's "Taxi Driver," would probably portray teen girls in parlaying their sexuality for survival on her terms, though sometimes her long stretches of passivity are slow and frustrating in between the action generated by the repetition of the titular call to arms.
The music of Tangerine Dream in particular on the soundtrack helps reinforce fears with a slightly sinister leitmotif, and the rest of the European period pop music is atmospherically selected.
Jacquot stays sympathetic to her point of view through to the end, even if the lessons she has learned seem more from a reality TV show or the criminal satire "From Noon Till Three" than a mother might wish while a parent's over-reactive lesson might be: Lock up your daughters! Close-ups are a bit over-used, but they reinforce her adolescent self-centeredness.