It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Director Benoît Jacquot (Right Now) has taken a script by Jacques Fieschi, based on a Japanese novel by Yukio Mishima, added superstar Isabelle Huppert (The Piano Teacher) and Vincent Martinez, in his first acting role to give us an interesting and satisfying look at the older woman/younger man romance.While having a younger man was satisfying for Dominique (Huppert), the effort to keep him was physically and emotionally exhausting. It did not help that Quentin (Martinez) earned a living being available to men as well.Huppert is a guarantee for a good show, and she can act, too - a satisfying combination.

More than a few French film-makers seem to like to take two strong characters—with different strengths—and throw them together and wait for the reactions. Jacquot's version of this procedure involves an older woman, Dominique (Isabel Huppert) involved with a younger man, the hustler Quentin (Vincent Martinez).While this pairing suggests cliché, somehow it grows well beyond the usual fare To begin with, Dominique is a complicated character, strong, in control of her life, inclined to be merry though not entirely content with things and hating boredom. It's not entirely clear what she does professionally—perhaps a designer or owner/executive of a fashion company—but she enjoys it and is good at it. She takes her droopy friend (Danièle Dubroux) around with her, and at a nightclub she sees Quentin staring at her. The gay waiter Chris (Vincent Lindon) helps her get acquainted, and an affair begins. Quentin is fickle and stubborn and wayward, turns tricks for money, knows he's good at it, prefers women but doesn't mind men.He isn't as strong as he looks. Though Quentin makes gestures about preserving his independence, going out, seeing others, and doling out attention according to his convenience, in fact Dominique makes the rules. When he does things that would hurt or threaten a more conventional woman, she remains unfazed. What she wants is Quentin as he is, vibrant and smoldering and vulnerable. It's interesting to watch the way his attempts to assert a bad-boy independence always wind up with him walking away from the supposedly edgy scene—the nightclub where they met, the street where the rent-boys hustle—with Dominique, or heading back to her apartment. And it's surely symbolic that he practices karate enthusiastically in the dojo, but he's not so tough outside, falling down twice in brief fights.But when inevitably there's a crisis it's not a predictable case of him acting out the bad boy part. No, he plans to marry the pretty young daughter of Dominique's friends. Dominique has the chance to blackmail Quentin with explicit pictures of him having sex with a male client, provided by Chris (who says she wanted to be able to have power over him but not to use it. Dominique is stronger. But she burns them. And in doing so, she realizes they're finished. Quentin wants to stay with Dominique, but by this time she's exhausted. She sends him away; he sits shirtless on the floor, mourning, refusing to leave. Then a brief coda: Dominique a few years later, elegant, with longer hair, runs into Quentin outside a metro stop. He's carrying a young child, his daughter from his by now failed marriage. He gives Dominique his address, but she doesn't take it. She watches him go.Martinez is pretty good, sneaking in boyishness under the carapace of macho sexuality, and he has a great smile. Lindon is also excellent as Chris, an elective girl with a great knowing look. There are also a couple of brief appearances by an old boyfriend of Quentin's, Soukaz (François Berléant), who is rueful and nervously dignified. The real delight is Huppert, who is simply breathtaking in this part. In other movies she has been called upon for over-the-top effects, but here she uses a subdued, subtle technique, registering emotions with small but affective expressions: boredom, curiosity, desire, joy, discomfort, hope, desperation, humour, calm, sadness, self-control. A great movie, one that turns stereotypes inside out.

There is something extraordinary about the two leads in this movie. Vincent Martinez was initially quite appalling to look at - scrawny, brooding with features more akin to a caricature! However, as the film progresses, one can sense a certain charisma and physical presence that he projects more and more palpably; yes, even from a man's perspective. But that's as far as it goes for him...As for Isabelle, my! What an actress, what a woman! These French actress: Catherine Deneuve, Adjani, Beart - very few Hollywood actresses can be placed in the same league as them. This is my first time seeing Ms Huppert perform and I was really blown away. She brought so much contradicting sides to her character and she made them so believable. The character is strong in career and personality, yet vulnerable in her devotion to the above-mentioned man-animal. She is decisive and purposeful in life choices of career, marriage and the man-in-her-life yet defers constantly to the whims and fancies of him. You get the picture!Anyway, with one single long shot of her face as betrayal, despair and sadness climax into a single track of tears - extraordinary! No self-pity, no cloying sentimentality; just plain sadness at the state of affair....At first glance, she did not appear extraordinarily beautiful. But as the film progresses, she looked increasingly radiant and one can't help but feel drawn to her.One of the best film I've seen at this year's film festival where more is said through pregnant silences than confrontations and accusations a la Hollywood.

A superb study of a mature woman's knowledge of her inner self, and acting out on instinct, regardless of the consequences, THE SCHOOL OF FLESH is memorable. Isabelle Huppert, at home playing cold, calculated women, shines as the mature woman, supported by fine performances, notably by Vincent Lindon, in a highly atypical role, and professional direction by veteran Benoit Jacquot.