Save your money for something good and enjoyable

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

Eric Rohmer (the director of Pauline at the beach) is perhaps most well-known for his film-cycles. He would take one main theme and approach it in a cyclic (some might even say repetitive) way through multiple movies. In his life he made 3 cycles: The 6 Moral Tales (in the 60's and 70's), The Comedies and Proverbs (in the 80's) and The Tales of Four Seasons (in the 90's).Pauline at the Beach is part of the Comedies and Proverbs cycle (it's the third installment). As the title suggests the reoccurring motifs in the comedies and proverbs are a comedic approach and a unique proverb that each film is based on. Pauline at the beach is based on the proverb: "Qui trop parole il se mesfait" (a quote from Chrétien de Troyes' Perceval) which roughly translates to: "Whoever talks too much does himself a bad turn". The proverb is displayed as part of the opening credits.The plot is very simple: The 15 year old Pauline and her significantly older and just divorced cousin (Marion) go on summer vacation to a house near a beach that belongs to Marion and her brother. During their stay they meet 3 men: Pierre, a former friend of Marion who is (still) in love with her, Henri, a divorced ethnologist who praises freedom and independence, and Sylvain, a boy not much older than Pauline. The movie tracks Pauline's and Marion's vacation and their affairs with the men. The catalyst for all their meetings is the beach and the characters express themselves through elaborative speeches about their love life and how one should love. Often their actions contradict what they say.Rohmer counters the rather static talking by exhibiting layered backgrounds, beaches, gardens, clubs, streets, thus giving us a rich and detailed panorama; an atmosphere that feels just like holiday. He also focuses on body-language – subtle movements and quick glances give us a better idea of the characters and their relations. Especially Pauline gets her fair share of screen time. When Pauline, Marion, Henri and Pierre meet at Henri's on the first evening they have a lengthy talk about their love lives or rather their ideals concerning those. Pauline says nothing (until she is later asked to) and while all the other characters sit and talk the camera follows her when she walks over to the chimney (and later back again). In fact the movie seems to draw a line between Pauline and the adults – by framing and by the arrangement of dialogue. Pauline says relatively little. She seems to focus more on actions – when Henri kisses her feet to wake her she kicks him in the chest before saying anything.A central conflict in the film ensues when Henri meets with Louisette (a girl who sells candy at the beach) and sleeps with her when he is already romantically involved with Marion. Marion comes back while both are still in bed and Henri convinces Marion that Louisette was really together with Sylvain (who is also at Henri's house) although he is romantically involved with Pauline. Subsequently the gossiping arises, Marion tells Pierre and Pierre tells Pauline who is as a result disappointed by Sylvain and doesn't want to see him anymore; and although Pauline later learns the truth her affair with Sylvain is over, the talking did all the damage.A very defining aspect of Pauline at the Beach is if you look at it as a coming of age movie, a movie about the loss of a child's innocence, that Pauline doesn't actually lose her innocence – she never sleeps with Sylvain. However it could yet be described as a loss of innocence. She has now been exposed to the love-games of the adults, in fact without wanting it she has been a part of them. Thus she didn't lose her innocence by herself but her surroundings achieved that.The movie has a very closed feel to it: it starts with Pauline opening the fences in front of Marion's house and ends with her closing them. It singles out Pauline's vacation and makes it stand as something unique from the rest of her life – thus highlighting the importance of the events that happened but also trivializing them as something that's over, closed and locked away in her memory, and has little connection to the rest of her life.With Pauline at the Beach Rohmer paints an almost mystic painting of innocence and childish naivety. Through the contrast to the love-games of the adults he is able to single out Pauline who seems like someone stuck in the wrong painting. Amanda Langlet (Pauline) plays this role exhilaratingly well – she seems at the same time young and naïve, yet also wise and knowledgeable.Pauline at the Beach is a love letter to childhood. It stresses the importance of naivety, openness, shows us the vile entanglement that detaches us from the world around us and from ourselves. Rohmer achieves a fresh and vibrant tone; he treats each character with respect and grants them the room that they need to not become objects, subject of the story but subjects by themselves; he effortlessly emulates the relaxed and laid back atmosphere of a summer holiday – yet over this joyous ambiance loom the dangers that the future will bring – all the entanglements that the world will plant upon you.

Released in 1983, PAULINE AT THE BEACH is the third picture of Rohmer's "Comedies and Proverbs" series (6 in total, started with THE AVIATOR'S WIFE 1981, 8/10). The titular Pauline (Langlet) is attended by her elder cousin Marion (Dombasle), to stay in their family's vacation home on the north-western coast of France. They are two gorgeous beauties with gaping disparity, Pauline is a 15-year-old teenager, has a darker bob cut while Marion is a model-shaped blonde and just sets herself free from a failed marriage. On the beach, soon they attract the attention of Marion's old flame Pierre (Greggory) and a single father Henri (Atkine), their contrast is plain to see too, Pierre is a windsurfing coach, younger and more handsome, while Henri is a bit bald, ordinary-looking. Henri invites all to dinner and they discuss about love, Rohmer effortlessly compresses their different philosophy in the conversation, Pierre is the one who lives on hope, contests in a more traditional value of love and morality, demands devotion wholeheartedly; Henri, on the contrary, is a rootless hedonist, affectionate but leaves no strings attached. For Marion, she believes love at first sight, the spontaneous sex appeal can drive her up in flames, however it should also be reciprocal, and in her case, she is quite confident since she is the paradigm of a perfect lover for any heterosexual man. Finally, Pauline, who by far hasn't foray into the territory apart from some puppy love, surprisingly has her own stance on the subject matter - you must know people to love them, not judging the book by its page, her precociousness strikes as a stunner. That same night, Marion becomes the one who takes the move, not to the besotted Pierre, but the rather unappealing Henri, their chemistry blazes passionately, but Pierre doesn't intend to capitulate, his pursuit to Marion is as relentless as his repulsion to Henri. Pauline suggests Pierre is a more befitting match for Marion, and Marion proposes with the same thought, Pierre is the perfect choice for Pauline to spice up her adolescence. The upshot is the poor Pierre ends up in the friend zones of both. Pauline dates a local boy Sylvain (de la Brosse) around her age, and Henri hooks up with Louisette (Rosette), a snack-peddler on the beach, when Marion and Pauline are out visiting Mont Saint-Michel. He also fabricates a perfect lie to cover the story when Marion returns unexpectedly, leaving Sylvain as the fall guy. Anyhow in Rohmer's cinema world, there is no place for melodrama, the lie will unravel in its due course, but there is no undoing for Henri, he is the one can take flight at any moment, for him, it is a white lie with the best intention without hurting Marion's feeling (although it does put Pauline and Sylvian's relationship under the strain). Atkine deftly leavens his part with a full-on composure, downplays his libido-driven lust and convincingly gives the lecture to Pauline about how he really feels for Marion. Greggory manages to balance Pierre's impeachable standing and behavior with his pesky bluntness to the extent where Rohmer asks for, one could rationally concur with his standpoints, yet, in the end of the day, he slips to be the most unlikeable character in the story, while the most admirable one is Rosette's Louisette, sky is the limit for her. Dombasle is a bombshell in her pinnacle, but not an insipid one, she generously presents the whole spectrum of Marion's desire, fantasy and despondency. Langlet varnishes Pauline with her primary color, at first being upstaged by others, slowly her learning-curve of adulthood becomes the cornerstone of the film, at the final scene, which works magnificently in concert with the opening one, Marion might be the same, Pauline definitely acquire some nitty-gritty from her short stay, about both men and women, but can she excel in her upcoming adulthood? There is a bigger picture left unsaid, we are all indebted to Rohmer's mastery and grateful to the treasure trove he bequeathed to us, which is worth discovering and revisiting from time to time.

So this movie is ostensibly about a young girl, Pauline, a ripening seed so to speak, and her summer holiday in north-west France. Rohmer however uses Pauline to expose the fallacies of the adults she runs into, who all have various misconceptions about love that make them unable to be happy.Rohmer, I've noticed, likes his flowers, and I felt quite peaceful looking at the hydrangeas in the film, they're much better in a warm environment (I'm from the UK). There's a great shot as well of some roses outside Pauline's bedroom window, they're mostly buds, with a couple of half-flowered pinks and some quite fully out red ones. Metaphoric I presume for the joys to come and her stage of development. Aside from the relationships, which I'm going to focus on, I liked the holiday feel here, the way the beaches were shot reminded me of when I was a kid holidaying (actually in pretty much the same area), the sound of the sea breeze and the windsurfers jetting about.Near the start there is an evening get together where the characters are discussing their conceptions of love, Marion is a fashion designer, a leonine blonde with the kind of body that would have had her cast as an extra on Baywatch in a snap, she wants to burn with love, brûlant, I believe is the word she uses (lovely French word). Marion has an Orphic concept of love, where she believes that people are completed by love, that she must look for a complement to her personality. Pierre, a graduate student who loves his windsurfing believes in well-matched love, and doesn't like the complementary theory, he thinks that people should be strong individuals and do not need to be completed by someone else. He believes that love is a long slow process where the strength of love builds gradually.Pauline is Marion's young niece, aged sixteen I believe. Marion is looking after her, though in my opinion it is a close run thing whether Marion should be looking after Pauline or Pauline Marion. Pauline has no conceits regarding love, she will take things as they come, this seems to me to be by far the most sensible attitude. Henri is an ethnologist, tied to France by only his daughter, he is much more at home kayaking in Sulawesi, for him he is worn out with love and is more looking for a roll in the hay. His favourite record is tellingly called Chant des îles (Call of the Islands in other words). Marion is the most annoying character for me (I'm sure everyone has their favourite), actually one of the most annoying characters I have ever seen in a movie. She leads Pierre on but behaves very distantly towards him. All he wants is to be with her, and he sees that her affair with Henri is founded on an illusion. All she sees when she sees Pierre though is someone who could take Pauline's virginity for her, a suggestion she repeatedly pushes on him, and is the ultimate in insults. Her great hypocrisy is that she tells Pierre that love can't be forced, however she then tries to do exactly that with Henri.Mairon is one of the breed of unfortunate women who likes to look down her nose at young men, falsely believing herself to be more sophisticated. Everyone has preferences, but she has developed her preference into a conceit. Perhaps the most likable character in the film is the boy Sylvain, who is Pauline's age and very gentlemanly. Marion refers to him as a "'tit cretin", even though she knows absolutely nothing about him (at another point she describes boys of Pauline's age as stupid and brutal - bête et brutale). She talks a lot about seeing the depth of a person's soul, that's what you see at the moment of love, not that she has actually been in love before, as she readily admits. So I spent a lot of the movie being angry with Marion.The quote at the start of the movie was not translated on the R1 DVD, "Qui trop parole, il se mesfait" which is from Chretien de Troyes, "No one can be too talkative without often saying something that makes him look foolish". That sums Marion up really well, but probably Pierre and Henri too.Perhaps the message of the movie, as Pauline is the only character to receive affirmation, is that we should love as if we were children.One last word is that this movie is a bit of an advert for drink driving! Marion and Henri both are pretty wasted when they drive home from a party.

One of Eric Rohmer's most charming comedies, Pauline at the Beach is a look at the conflict of an adolescent girl who is exposed to the dubious morality of the adults around her. Pauline (Amanda Langlet) is a fifteen year old girl entrusted by her parents to spend the summer with her older cousin Marion (Arielle Dombasie) at a beach resort at the Normandy Coast of France. At the beach, Marion, who is divorced, runs into Pierre (Pascal Gregory), an old friend who is still in love with her even though she rejected him in the past. Marion, however, is more interested in the more worldly Henri (Feodor Atkine), an older friend of Pierre's, who is also a compulsive womanizer.Pauline is a disinterested observer until she develops a relationship with Sylvain (Simon De La Brosse), a boy of her own age. There is a lot of talk about love and its expectations and Pauline drinks it all down. Marion tells Pauline that she was unable to love her husband and is now waiting for "something to burn inside her". Pierre has a very traditional attitude, thinking that love should only be based upon mutual trust but Henri believes in living for the moment and avoiding commitments. When Henri tries to cover up a secret affair with the candy girl (Rosette) by shifting the blame to young Sylvain, Pauline is called upon to sort out the truth and, in the process, does some fast growing up. Pauline at the Beach is one of Rohmer's most engaging films and the characters are delightful. By the end you feel as if you have made new friends but, alas, the summer vacation is soon over.