New York's Rendez-Vous With French Cinema

Campillo keeps the questions coming.

Nicole Garcia has a loose-limbed almost casual approach to directing, her easy way with actors drawing you in to this emotionally complex tale of loneliness and connection.

Peretti lets his violence resonate, keeping it mostly offscreen but letting it echo ominously in the animalistic tendencies of the teens.

Keeps holding out a promise of insight into its young protagonist's mentality and makeup, but ends up merely observing her from a cool distance, as if through the binoculars from the opening scene.

Brac films the small town in great detail, capturing its claustrophobia, and the sometimes tragic destinies of his protagonists.

The overkill threatens to bludgeon the much-loved book into an over-wrought exercise in style.

Everyone is allowed to over-act, not least herself, who runs the gamut of wet-eyed self-pity to hysteria.

Although the actors acquit themselves with some distinction the performances cannot quite disguise the one dimensional aspect of the characters.