An Easy Girl

This is one of those coming of age movies where a teenager gets introduced to more adult matters by an older friend or relative. In this story, sixteen year old Naima is introduced to the adult world by her 22 year old cousin. Mina Farid plays Naima and I liked her character very much. However, 28 year old Zahia Dehar is totally wrong for the older cousin. She is too old for the role and has had way too much plastic surgery including her unrealistically large and tight breasts. In these stories there is usually an older friend of similar age who is light years ahead of the protagonist in looks and experience. However, Dehar is actually pushing middle age and the director uses a soft focus on her a lot. Naima is no lamb to the slaughter but can stand up to herself. She has the character that Sofia lacks. She gets money from her mother to pay for lunch when Sofia intends to dine and dash. She returns at the end of the film to apologize to one of the men on the yacht and to make sure he knows she is not a thief. At the end of the movie, Sofia has decamped to Paris and Naima is training as a chef. Thirty years on when Naima is 46 you can envision her as an accomplished person but Sofia at 50 can only be envisioned as being in bad marriage. This could have been a very sweet film but the script and the casting doom it.