Despite the controversy, this film hails a major new directorial talent
Cuties 15 cert, 96 min ★★★★★
Dir Maïmouna Doucouré
Starring Fathia Youssouf, Médina El Aidi-azouni, Maïmouna Gueye, Esther Gohourou, Ilanah Camigoursolas, Myriam Hamma, Mbissine Thérèse Diop, Demba Diaw
The tricky line between marketing and exploitation caused a ruckus in the case of Cuties, a wild feature debut from French-senegalese Maïmouna Doucouré that won the directing award at Sundance before being snapped up by Netflix.
Then a poster happened to it. It used an image cribbed from the film’s most openly provocative sequence – the finale – which out of context made everyone see red. It showed four preteen girls striking “sexy” poses on a stage, wearing shiny crop tops, knee pads and booty shorts.
Netflix apologised for the poster, and switched to a different image of this quartet pouting to camera, but the damage was done. Doucouré received death threats on social media, and a petition to have the film banned has amassed over 340,000 signatures on change.org.
However, no one involved in demonising this film has paused at any stage – or, presumably, watched it – to consider that its very subject is the disturbing, premature sexualisation of young girls in French society.
Eleven-year-old Amy (Fathia Youssouf), a Senegalese Muslim, has recently moved to a Parisian housing estate with her mother (superb Maïmouna Gueye) and two younger brothers. Her father is about to take a second wife, and preparations for the dreaded wedding are under way. At school, a troupe of wannabe dancers called the “mignonnes” (“cuties”) catch Amy’s attention, but she feels too square and shy to fit in – at least until she pilfers a mobile phone from her uncle, and begins using it to take selfies, beautify herself, and get tips from hip-hop twerking videos.
Doucouré is blatantly pushing buttons here – never more so than in the increasingly eye-widening dance sequences, where Amy quickly graduates from the rookie to the one schooling them in risqué, choreography. (The climax of
Little Miss Sunshine often springs to mind.)
As the girls mess about recklessly and rehearse their moves, they also know their youth gives them a treacherous power, as we see when a security guard tries to hustle them out for trespassing and they brand him as a child molester. These certainly aren’t your neighbourhood’s average polite children. They’re twerking terrors.
Following some well-received shorts, Doucouré made this from a very personal place. The keenest parts explore the push/pull of her Muslim upbringing.
Amy is acting out because of her father’s betrayal, and unwilling to follow her mother – who’s secretly devastated – down the path of demure submission to the patriarchy.
Her rebellion takes the form of defiantly flaunting herself, and due to the film’s camerawork, the routines she masterminds will make the male gaze curl up in horror.
Because of the furore, the powderkeg provocation has blown up in Doucouré’s face, too. But the film’s first hour is top-notch for a debut, and the child performances are electric.
Imperfect as it is, this film deserves to launch a career, not end one.
Now streaming on Netflix