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Lila (Vahina Giocante), the 16-year-old angelic blonde in Ziad Doueiri’s latter-day Romeo and Juliet, says things like "Want to see my pussy?" Is she for real? Chimo (Mohammed Khouas), her teenage neighbor in a Parisian Arab quarter, thinks so. Sensitive and passive, a budding writer, he’s seduced by her beauty, her dirty talk, and her forbidden allure, in the process alienating his thuggish pals and his depressive mom. It’s harder to figure out what seduced Doueiri — certainly not the thrill of hearing Giocante pout out male adolescent fantasies with all the charisma of a rubber sex doll. His movie is well-intentioned, but he’s stymied by stereotypes. It’s always risky to pose your protagonist as a brilliant writer (the film is based on a "controversial" novel by a pseudonymous "Chimo") and then indulge in first-person narration. Here the resulting clichés expose both narrator and filmmaker as all show.
BY PETER KEOUGH
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