The Sloth loves a creepy movie kid. And The Sloth loves celebrated French director François Ozon, for he is particularly adept at delivering them. We’d never want him to tell us about his mother.

Isabelle (Marine Vacth) is 16. She is young, beautiful and on a family summer holiday when hunky young German Felix catches her eye. After a brief courtship (where she buys him an ice cream, good to see we’re in an age of equality), she loses her virginity to him. Strangely unmoved by his subsequent affection, she sweeps back home without so much as a backwards glance.

Scroll forwards to Autumn. Isabelle has turned 17 and, unknown to her bourgeouis and caring family, has taken a part time job in between studying. Now in The Sloth’s day, that generally involved waiting tables, but entrepreneurial Isabelle has adopted a pseudonym and is selling herself. Wearing her mum’s silk blouse and claiming an age of 20, she meets businessmen in smart hotels for sex, stashing wodges of cash at the back of her wardrobe. Other than her taking an unusual amount of showers, her mother (Géraldine Pailhas) and stepfather (Frédéric Pierrot) notice nothing untoward. Until one day an older client has a heart attack and dies while she is on the job. The police are called and her cover is blown.

In a stroke of genius, her behaviour is unexplained, leaving us as unnerved as her horrified parents. Dragged to a psychiatrist, who is equally unable to get the brooding Isabelle to open up, we’re left wondering is it youthful rebellion? Money-lust? Or does she simply enjoy it? Enigmatic, hypnotic and using her beauty to toy with men like a cat with a mouse, Isabelle is quite the anti-heroine, leaving her own mother admitting she is scared of her. We’d certainly cross the road if she was coming. Good job, M. Ozon, another top Scary Kid to add to your gallery.

UK release 29 November