Lila Says

Chimo, a 19-year-old of North African descent, isn’t like his pals; he’d like to write, get out of the Marseille ghetto, do something different. And when he meets Lila, a slightly snooty blond beauty with an unusually forthright, even fantastic way of talking about sex (and little else), he’s hooked… though he won’t admit it to his friends. Though well acted and directed, the film lacks the freshness of Doueri’s earlier ‘West Beirut’, and there’s something both predictable and reactionary about the film’s later scenes. Mixed pickings.