An Impudent Girl [L’Effrontée] *** (1985, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Bernadette Lafont, Jean-Claude Brialy, Clothilde Baudon) – Classic Movie Review 11,768

Director Claude Miller’s French 1985 drama An Impudent Girl [L’Effrontée] [Charlotte and Lulu] stars Charlotte Gainsbourg, Bernadette Lafont, Jean-Claude Brialy, Clothilde Baudon and Raoul Billerey. It is a free uncredited adaptation of the novel Frankie Addams, the French title of Carson McCullers’s The Member of the Wedding.

Young Charlotte Gainsbourg plays a shy, clumsy working-class 13-year-old girl called Charlotte, who dreams of something better but cannot decide what it is until she meets little miss perfect, pianist prodigy Clara (Clothilde Baudon), who becomes a catalyst for her anger and frustration. Charlotte lives with her brother and her father but her only friend is sick 10-year-old Lulu (Julie Glenn).

Director Claude Miller shows his talent for understanding adolescence and his sensitivity for young actors, coaxing a special performance from his early teenage star, the daughter of Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin, in only her third film. Miller asked permission from her parents to cast her. Miller said: ‘Charlotte was in a way already a star because of her parents. People went to see her out of curiosity.’

Luckily it was successful, because Miller decided to go ahead without securing the rights. He said in 1986: ‘Now we’re negotiating to pay a reasonable percentage. Fortunately the film has been a hit.’

Miller recalled: ‘It’s certainly my most optimistic film. I wasn’t trying to show a terrible drama, just one of those ordinary events which happen to all adolescents and shape us for life.’

Gainsbourg won the César Award for Most Promising Actress, and Bernadette Lafont won the César Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.

The film won the Louis Delluc Prize.

Miller later made his next film the 1988 French drama The Little Thief [La Petite Voleuse] with Gainsbourg, based on an unfinished script by François Truffaut.

The Member of the Wedding was filmed in 1952.

The cast are Charlotte Gainsbourg as Charlotte Castang, Clothilde Baudon as Clara Bauman, Julie Glenn as Lulu, Bernadette Lafont as Léone, Jean-Claude Brialy as Sam, Jean-Philippe Écoffey as Jean, Raoul Billerey as Antoine Castang, and Richard Guerry as Regard sombre.

Claude Miller (20 February 1942 – 4 April 2012). His first feature is the admired The Best Way to Walk. 

The films of Claude Miller: The Best Way to Walk (1976), This Sweet Sickness (1977), Garde à Vue (1981), Deadly Circuit (1983), An Impudent Girl (1985), The Little Thief (1988), The Accompanist (1992), Le Sourire (1994), Class Trip (1998), Of Woman and Magic (2000), Alias Betty (2001), Little Lili (2003), A Secret (2007), Marching Band (2009), I’m Glad My Mother Is Alive (2009), See How They Dance (2010), and Thérèse Desqueyroux (2012).

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,768

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