"Eliane becomes the talk of the town for her sultry, uninhibited sensuality, and takes a fancy to Pin-Pon with an ulterior motive (the family piano left by Pin-Pon's father plays a key role in ascertaining the identities of those base sex offenders). But underneath her free-spirited, come-hither deportment, the weight of this unspeakable secret often prompts her into paroxysms of mood-swings (punctuated by past memories and harrowing experiences),which act like yellow flags to Pin-Pon of her mental instability. That said, no heterosexual men can possibly resist the allure of a primetime Adjani, soon Eliane moves into Pin-Pon's dwelling, with his widowed mother Madame Montecciari (Clève),his semi-deaf auntie Cognata (Flon, delectably sagacious and breezy) and his two younger brothers, Mickey (a 28-year-old Cluzet, then a fresh-faced dreamboat, acting with great facility) and Boubou (Gélin)."

read the full review on my blog: cinema omnivore, thanks

In spring 1976, a 19-year-old beauty, her German-born mother, and her crippled father move to the town of a firefighter nicknamed Pin-Pon. Everyone notices the provocative Eliane. She singles out Pin-Pon and soon is crying on his shoulder (she's myopic and hates her reputation as a dunce and as easy); she moves in with him, knits baby clothes, and plans their wedding. Is this love or some kind of plot? There is so much going on in this film. Initially, it appears to be from the perspective of Pin-Pon and his obsession with a woman who may be the town bicycle. But we only hear his thoughts some of the time. In other moments, we get Eliane's thoughts (as well as memories),and other people take certain scenes as the narrator, too. This only adds to the layer of mystery about what is all going on.

One thing that makes this film very French and not very American is the excessive nudity. Isabelle Adjani spends a fair amount of time in various stages of undress. This is never really necessary, but really says more about French attitudes than anything else. I do not feel like it was meant to be exploitative or sensational.

There are some elements of this movie that are extremely interesting. The problem is, the plot is quite muddled and it looks as if two different movies had been spliced together. One movie was about a nymph who loved sex and got raunchy with EVERYONE (including Mom) and the other is a Hitchcock-like suspense movie about revenge. Combined, they just don't work. As a sex film, it doesn't quite work and as a suspense it has problems as well because of the inexplicable story elements. I have absolutely no idea why, out of the blue, this 20 year-old opens her mother's blouse and begins sucking her Mom's breast or renews a sexual affair with an older female teacher or walks around naked in front of her mother in law, smacks her father over the head repeatedly with a shovel after he fondles her butt or sleeps with LOTS of different men. All these sexcapades distract from the main story line. In addition, at times her character just seems rather dumb and if she's just "winging it" when it comes to her convoluted plot for revenge.

The first half of the movie is the problem, as most of the 2nd half is excellent. If it were remade, it could be a fantastic film.