Léon: The Professional is giving me conflicted thoughts. It’s good, but also really fucking creepy.

I saw it for the first time last night. I’ll start with what I liked.

• The acting performances were fantastic. Jean Reno captures the essence of Léon better than anyone could, Natalie Portman acts well beyond her years, and Gary Oldman’s character is one of the more unique and interesting movie villains I’ve seen. My eyes were glued to the screen whenever he was on screen.

• The cinematography was great. There were plenty of beautiful shots that I loved.

• The action sequences were well-shot and enthralling.

Now, what I didn’t like, and the most prevalent critique of the film: The over-sexualization of a 12-13 year old Natalie Portman.

This was extremely off-putting. There were a couple of times when I paused the film and said aloud to myself “What the fuck.” The scene where Mathilda dresses up as Madonna and Marilyn Monroe is just weird, she calls Léon her “lover” or “my love” multiple times, tells him she has a crush on him, a few camera shots needlessly show off her body, etc.

Some of this could perhaps be chalked up to a kid having an innocent crush; I get that, but it doesn’t help that the director of the film married and impregnated a minor, and claimed that relationship inspired the movie. Also, the original script apparently had a scene where Mathilda seduces Léon, so WTF.

I want to like the film because there are a lot of great things about it, but this left a bad taste in my mouth. Does anyone else feel this way?

Submitted May 07, 2023 at 02:49AM by -ColonelKurtz- https://ift.tt/Lktjq4X