Prudence Friedmann is alone. Her sister is on her own.
Her father is working in Canada and she is left to cope with the sudden
death of her mother. Set in Paris, Rebecca Zlotowski's
sensitive Dear Prudence is an impressionistic story of a sad and lonely
adolescent who begins to lose her bearings as a result of her inability
to grieve her mother's loss. In a beautifully nuanced performance by
Lea Seydoux as Prudence, this personal film manages to avoid the
self-conscious clichés of adolescent angst, creating a
believable three-dimensional human being, a 16-year-old in pain trying
to navigate in an emotional no-man's land.
As the film begins, Prudence (Seydoux) and Maryline (Agathe Schlenker)
are arrested and strip-searched for shoplifting but released when the
evidence is hidden too deep to be discovered. Afterward she seeks out
her fellow offender and invites her to her house, giving her the keys
to come and go as she pleases. Soon Maryline introduces Prudence to her
friends on the motorcycle racing circuit at Rungis and the naïve
young girl who is starving for love, skips school and becomes involved
with the fast and chaotic world of bike racing. Although, at the home
of her aunt and uncle, the meaning of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are
explained, she ignores the celebrations and traditions of her Jewish
heritage and continues to seek adventure among the bikers.
She becomes involved with a boy, Franck (Johan Libereau), who takes
advantage of her for his sexual pleasure. When she walks out of a movie
leaving Franck feeling angry and deserted, she goes to his house to try
and talk to his mother, but she is too busy or just not interested and
Prudence reaches the outer edge of despair. Filled with frequent use of
female nudity and accompanied by a pounding pop-rock score, Dear
Prudence allows the turbulence of an adolescent to come alive, managing
to convey a quiet emotional power that is tender and haunting. Only
when Prudence witnesses the death of a young bike racer on the circuit
does she begin to touch her own deep and suppressed grief, perhaps
realizing, in the words of the poet Dylan Thomas, ”Though lovers be
lost love shall not; And death shall have no dominion”.
GRADE: A-
Seen at the Vancouver International Film Festival
