Smart Ass review – so-so French drama about sex and money

This French drama about a trio of classmates who set up a prostitution ring isn't great. However, it makes for an interesting companion piece to François Ozon's more provocative take on a similar theme, Young & Beautiful, from last year. Together, the two films worryingly imply that many kids today see sex as little more than a bodily function or a saleable commodity within a late-capitalist service economy, but one where feminism never happened. Thomas Blumenthal, Alice Isaaz and Jean-Baptiste Lafarge star as students at a Paris business school who apply lessons in supply, demand and market value to hook-up culture by arranging for pretty, working-class girls to be escorts for less attractive boy students, thus making the latter look more desirable. Presumably, the montage sequences and wisecracks are meant to signal that comedy was intended up until the point where everything goes predictably wrong, but it's just not very funny, or sexy.