MOVIE REVIEW

Coming of age on the run.

By Kevin Thomas, Times Staff Writer

Few movies have the power to grab the viewer from the very first frame and never let go. As flawless as a film gets, Benoît Jacquot's "À Tout de Suite" is aptly titled, for it is as immediately compelling and beguiling as its highly spontaneous 19-year-old heroine Lili (Isild Le Besco), who in early 1975 lives with her father, older sister and a housekeeper in Paris in a fine old Beaux Arts apartment and studies art.

Lili gets along well with her family — her parents are separated — but is a free spirit, expressed beautifully in cinematographer Caroline Champetier's flowing, shot-from-the hip imagery in a muted black and white, a style reminiscent of the French New Wave.

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She and a girlfriend are seated in a cafe when a well-dressed, good-looking man, probably in his 30s, not only orders them drinks but also confidently pulls up a chair. He invites them to a club the following night, where Lili meets the man's young business partner. Lili is not conventionally beautiful, but her face has a distinctive oval shape and sharp features that could have inspired Modigliani. So it is not surprising that the young partner, Bada (Ouassini Embarek), is as attracted to Lili as she is to him, for he is a strikingly handsome Moroccan.

She is barely into a rapturous romance, however, when she receives a phone call that will change her life forever. It's Bada, who informs her that he is in the midst of a botched bank holdup that has already cost the life of his partner and a teller. But if another partner, Alain (Nicolas Duvauchelle), can make good their getaway they have no place to go but her apartment. Unhesitatingly, she says yes.

The next morning, Lili, Bada, Alain and Alain's girlfriend, Joelle (Laurence Cordier), are flying to Spain, then Casablanca and Athens. It's a time of making love and spending freely — Alain and Bada having successfully made off with the bank loot — fueled by passion and a frisson of danger. What has happened to Lili is so dramatic and shocking that she asks herself whether she's actually experiencing true life.

Soon afterward, Lili's adventures in self-discovery really begin, and they unfold with a vision on Jacquot's part that is clear-eyed and realistic but also tender and compassionate. In its way, "À Tout de Suite" is a most unusual and unexpected coming-of-age story that captures the fear and exhilaration of love on the run, but the point of view of its telling is mature and responsible, and there is no amoral rendering of crime and bloodshed.

There is an aura of authenticity in emotion and detail, and Jacquot's direction has such immediacy and economy — there's not a soupçon of fussiness — that it is not surprising to learn that Lili's story is true.

In all its performances, as illuminating as they are natural, and at every turn, "À Tout de Suite" creates a sense of life unfolding before one's eyes. It's hard to imagine many films surpassing or even equaling the effect of this supple, breathtakingly direct, small French film.