The French actress Eva Ionesco mines her own scandalous past in her debut feature. Ionesco's mother, Franco-Romanian photographer Irina Ionesco, famously shot and sold erotic photography of her daughter at the age of five, initiating a queasy career that culminated in appearances in the Italian edition of Playboy at 11. Her story has already inspired Louis Malle's Pretty Baby, and Ionesco herself has spent much of her adult life dealing with the after-effects, repeatedly suing her mother for emotional distress.
In this fictional telling, Ionesco's mother is played by a peroxided, full-diva mode Isabelle Huppert, and much of the film revolves around the love-hate dynamic young Ionesco had with this glamorous, narcissistic figure. As cutting as she is about her mother, Ionesco does not shy away from a candid portrait of her younger self as a bratty, obnoxious teen (portrayed by newcomer Anamaria Vartolomei).
1 min 57 sec
Views
13,794
Posted On
October 24, 2011
Eva Ionesco
Writer
Eva Ionesco
Studio
Independent
Release
September 29, 2011
Isabelle Huppert
Denis Lavant
Anamaria Vartolomei
Louis-Do de Lencquesaing
Georgetta Leahu
No Music Available