Cecile is a desirable girl. She knows it and uses herself as a weapon. Even though she has a boyfriend she flirts and leads on every man she runs into. Once she has their attention and their sex drive on full she goes away leaving them with her panties or her phone number. She has a group of girl friends that get very little attention. They hang around and worry about the future, their relationships and their unhappiness with men. Eventually they take on a new career.
Cecile's boyfriend is some little thug as are all his friends some of which are involved with Cecile friends. They commit crimes, talk about their sexual conquests, whine and cry about their girlfriends. Because of tough economical times they have no jobs.
Matt is perhaps the main male character here. He's a mechanic and at the beginning of the movie has a run in with Cecile, a frustrated one which is her specialty. He has a girlfriend, Alice, but she won't put out. When her mom catches the young couple walking around, Alice gets in big trouble. Apparently wherever this is taking place, the harbor town still has some Victorian small town morality.
An older couple is significant for these people's lives because, like everyone else here, they aren't getting any, but devise a plan to change that, a plan the will involve Cecile who in turn will involve Alice. It all ends on a happy note.
In Q you get to witness all these frustrated people-frustrated financially, frustrated sexually-going about being frustrated and having frustrated sexual encounters and quickly it frustrates you too. Cecile is an interesting character. She's a free spirit, sexually open, and very attractive. She too is mighty frustrated sexually and looks for thrills by using, abusing, and manipulating people. She and most other women in this movie tell men some very hurtful things, when men are at their most vulnerable. This movie ought to have been a more detailed exploration of that kind of woman who delights in arousing men for kicks. But this movie doesn't do that, it goes for the easy and nice solution. In meantime one has to put up with all the drama with these relationships among characters that are never clearly established. And I use "drama" in the worst sense possible, as used by young people today. People are constantly crying, when they are alone, when they are with their loved ones. It's a bit too much. All the men here are weaklings and whiners- an easy target for Cecile. We know next to nothing of the other males or Cecile's friends, but when one of them whines about sex or a partner, the camera is there.
Thankfully, this movie shows plenty of skin nicely filmed which keeps you entertained in between scenes that have you throwing up your arms in the air in frustration. There is some XXX activity going on, but I wouldn't even call them "scenes," they are just a few frames really. Nothing that should outrage anyone. Appropriately, there's a certain timelessness in this movie. We have no idea how much time transpires in part because some scenes in the future are interspersed throughout the movie and also because these people are stuck in some very old fashioned way of looking at things. Still, Q is watchable, it is not like some Brisseau movie that puts you to sleep even as women are taking their clothes off. Q does feature the best opening credits ever unfortunately filmed in black and blue coloring though. Not to mention that Deborah Revy and Helene Zimmer are very attractive in a normal sort of way without being fake bombshells. Q has a couple of good idea and some excellent talent, it could and should have been so much more.
Relationships as portrayed in this movie make you almost long for the new American transactional type of relationship among the sexes.
