Beauty Tax
2026 · 2m
Directed by Hermine Prunier
Tones: humorous, provocative
Though very beautiful naturally, Jacqueline spends hours, a great deal of money, and more than one suffering to make herself beautiful for her date with Jean-Michel.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A two-minute grenade lobbed at the absurdity of beauty standards—the premise *looks* conventional until you realize the joke is on everyone, including Jacqueline's own complicity, and that's where it gets genuinely subversive.
Prunier executes a classically structured satire with sharp editorial pacing, positioning itself squarely in the lineage of French feminist comedy while maintaining formal discipline across its brief runtime.
The magic lives in the montage—how Prunier cuts between Jacqueline's suffering and her preparation creates a specific rhythm that transforms what could've been a heavy-handed message into something that lands through *editing* rather than exposition.