Charlotte for Ever (1986)
Directed by Serge Gainsbourg

Film Review

Each of the four films that Serge Gainsbourg directed provoked controversy, but none more so than his third, Charlotte for Ever, a characteristically uninhibited re-working of Lolita which has some disturbing, and pretty blatant, incestuous undertones.  Far from dampening down similarities with his own life, Gainsbourg goes out of his way to emphasise them, with his daughter Charlotte playing his on-screen daughter in a way that more than hints at an incestuous relationship, both off-screen and on.  Totally lacking in coherence, with Gainsbourg spending most of the time dribbling incomprehensible dialogue or drooling over his undressed offspring, the film is a challenge to sit through and resembles a music video that just doesn't know when to stop.

It would be easy to dismiss Charlotte for Ever as a vacuous vanity project, or at least an attempt by Gainsbourg, agent provocateur numéro un, to cock a very large snook at his detractors.  It is Charlotte Gainsbourg, stunning at the start of her career (as she had previously been in Claude Miller's far more digestible L'Effrontée (1985)), who salvages the film with a performance that is remarkable for someone of her years (she was just fourteen at the time the film was made).  Pushing the boundaries of both artistic expression and public acceptability, as he did for most of his career, Gainsbourg père allows himself to get carried away on a tidal wave of stomach-churning pretentiousness and bad taste, and without Gainsbourg fille, the sublime object of his infatuation, to rescue him he would have surely drowned.  Charlotte for Ever may have been intended as a father's expression of his love for his daughter, but the suggestion of illicit desire lingers in virtally every frame and it is impossible to watch the film without feeling just a little queasy. Next to this, Gainsbourg's earlier Je t'aime, moi non plus looks like a masterpiece.

Film Synopsis

Twenty years ago, Stan was a highly regarded Hollywood screenwriter.  Now he is a depressive alcoholic who spends his empty days wallowing in self-pity in his large house.  Barely coherent, he pours out his troubles in the company of his drinking partner.  Stan is on the brink of suicide but the one thing that keeps him going is the love he has for his teenage daughter, Charlotte - love that borders on desire.  She has no love for him, however.  In fact, she loathes him, blaming him for the accident that resulted in the death of her mother.  Stan's one purpose for living is to go on trying to win back his daughter's affections, but Charlotte knows that she will never be able to forgive him - and why should she?  He's just a pathetic drunk.