Given the forthcoming Hulu documentary on Brooke Shields next month, I decided to watch this wildly controversial film by Louis Malle, which marked her proper debut at age 13 and whose controversy is forever burned in our memories. Despite the salacious and disgusting media campaign backing the film (including Shields's clothed appearance on the cover of Playboy), I was surprised seeing it years later that, despite its rough subject matter, it is not exactly a graphic film. Her acting in it is quite good, and I found the subtle dynamics between her character and the environment in which she has been raised some of the most interesting parts of the film.
I don't know exactly how to feel about it, but it struck me less as a nasty exploitation piece than it did more a bildungsroman of a girl being brought up in a very adult environment, her incapacity to fully understand it, and ultimately the deleterious consequences it brings upon her. There are disgusting things that happen in it, but I didn't walk away from it feeling it is a disgusting film. It seems Shields was very hurt by the reaction to it, although I'm not exactly sure why she (or her mother) would have expected anything otherwise.