L'Étudiante (1988)
Directed by Claude Pinoteau

Film Review

After their successful collaboration on La Boum (1980) and La Boum 2 (1982) debutante actress Sophie Marceau and director Claude Pinoteau conspired to serve up yet another dollop of low calorie entertainment for dewy eyed adolescents emerging from the minefield of puberty into the disaster zone known as adulthood.   Wetter than a monsoon-themed weekend in Brittany, L'Étudiante is about as lightweight as a film can be without being composed entirely of hydrogen molecules.  Some may be enthralled by its inoffensive yet nauseating brand of chick lit style romantic naivety; anyone with any sense and/or self-respect plus some fleeting knowledge of how things are in the real world should give it a very wide berth.

Film Synopsis

Valentine and Edouard have nothing in common, and they could hardly be more different, but as soon as their paths cross during a skiing holiday they know they are right for each other.  She is a gifted and seriously minded academic who is about to take her final examinations in a few months' time.  He is a musician who lives only for his art and imagines that one day he will make his name composing film scores.  She has a well-developed political conscience and cares about the state of the world.  He, apparently, does not.  Temperamentally, Valentine and Ned (as he prefers to be called) could not be more ill-suited, but before they know it they are caught up in the wildest of whirlwind romances.

It is a measure of the intensity of the lovers' feelings for one another that recriminations are being hurled back and forth before they have even had time to settle into any kind of stable relationship.  Valentine resents her lover seeing his ex-wife and previous girlfriends.  Ned takes her to task for an affair she once had with one of her teachers.  Gradually, this slew of petty jealousies does its worst and poisons the relationship.  In the end, Valentine has taken more than she can stand and abruptly brings an end to the affair so that she can concentrate on her studies.  Ned hasn't given up yet, however, and comes up with a characteristically impulsive way to win her back...