Until she meets Georges (Johan Leysen), an elderly guy who becomes a regular. Their scenes together are amazing. He is curious about her, and she is detached and cold. But there is a kind of tenderness that opens up between them, and she feels comfortable during her times with him. When things with Georges go south, alarmingly, swiftly, she is shaken. Isabelle has devoted her life to sex that has no meaning, outside of the monetary reward. But something opens up in the air between her and Georges, through the sex, that is perhaps more adult than she is ready to confront or even experience. The tension that comes from not knowing why Isabelle has made these choices is beautiful. It does not condescend to the sexuality of its young lead. It understands that half the time she actually doesn't know what she is doing. And isn't that so often the case when you are 17.
Interspersed with the scenes with clients, we see Isabelle in operation in her other lives: her family, her parents, her classmates. In one great scene, Isabelle sits in an English class and the teacher starts a discussion about Rimbaud's poem "Novel," which includes the lines:
No one's serious at seventeen.
--On beautiful nights when beer and lemonade
And loud, blinding cafés are the last thing you need
--You stroll beneath green lindens on the promenade.
In a scene that feels improvised, the students discuss what those lines mean to them. They feel like real kids. When you're 17, you have no concept that your youth will not last forever; you have no understanding that you will look back on this particular "season" and perhaps see it a little bit differently. Rimbaud's poem helps crack open that reality for them. Isabelle does not participate in the discussion. "No one's serious at seventeen," Rimbaud? Well, she is. The secrets she keeps are enormous and threatening. Maybe that's the biggest thrill of all for her, showing how close to childhood she still is. Having a secret makes you feel powerful.
Her parents are caring individuals, and open-minded, but they have no idea what is going on with their daughter. Isabelle's mother (the wonderful Geraldine Pailhas) also has a secret, and it isn't revealed until later in the film. Isabelle's reaction to the reality of her mother's sexuality, still in operation, still trying to get its needs met, is one of hurt and loss. When her mother discovers Isabelle's secret, the comfortable family relationships break apart, and the unspoken understanding that families "know" one another is shattered. Pailhas loses it, in a confrontation scene both painful and violent.
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