ROSE is a free-spirited English girl in France, a long, long way from Truffaut territory. As limned by Francois Ozon, she's a bad influence and another excuse for him to inject his favorite theme, what has subsequently been jargonized as the lifestyle of the "metrosexual".
SPOILERS AHEAD:
Paul is a young hairdresser who has a fight with Rose when she has him dye her hair red (after first insisting on black "like a crow"), and doesn't pay up. Though unattractive (with a bad complexion) she has a great bod, shown off by Ozon for his usual softcore porn content, and the two of them quickly become a couple.
Twist is that she wants him to become a whore, coming with her to the disco (a very tiresome, dated sequence) to act as a wingman as she extracts thousands of francs from an old guy and a creepy younger-old guy for sex with them. She favors servicing the oldest folks (probably because she can manipulate them easier), while palming off the aggressive middle-aged gay guy on Paul.
This variation on one of the oldest of porn films' conventions, replete with Rose making the standard (and empty/trite) speech on how we're all prostitutes, so take advantage of it, is bad filmmaking with a capital B. The novelty of role reversal, as the heroine pimps out the innocent young boy rather than vice versa, is what Ozon is banking on to impress the jaded dullards who reside as Film Festival programmers in these decadent times -maybe hard up enough to give him an award for this drek?
Beyond the simulated sex scenes and gay angle, A ROSE BETWEEN US (Rose sports a rose tattoo on her shoulder, natch) is poorly made program filler. The non-performance by Rodolphe Lesage is from the Louis Malle school of non-pros, reminding me of LACOMBE, LUCIEN, with its classic (vive la difference!) title performance by ill-fated Pierre Blaise. Needless to say, Lesage is a 1-shot artiste.
Sasha Hails as Rose went on to star in Ozon's breakthrough film SEE THE SEA and has fashioned a writing career back in Blighty.
Film's ending is typically pointless, an Ozon trademark, as Rose is last seen playing with her cat, and Paul is back in his salon horsing around with his best pal Rémy. Life goes on.
The underlying message that prostitution is no big deal and "hey, give homosexuality a try, you only live once" (even in the context of prostitution) is rammed home pretty obviously. This is one case when I wish the auteur WOULD quit his day job, i.e., making bad films.
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