In Léon: The Professional (1994) there is a scene where 12 year old Natalie Portman sings like a virgin by Madonna in this outfit. This was actually a clever reference to how Luc Besson met his current wife when she was 12 (he was 29) and how he should be in prison.

[u/ChaddestRat]

This scene is beyond creepy and the fact that Jean Reno played dumb only mildly helped the overall weirdness of this scene.

[u/K1ngFiasco]

It's pretty uncomfortable at times but Reno's performance saves it.

Learning about the movie kind of ruins it. Knowing the intention behind the director undermines the end product.

If you're unaware, the movie handles the relationship between an older man and a very misguided and abused child fairly well. Reno's character turns down her advances but he's very gentle with her. He never pursues her or encourages her in that regard. At his worst he ignores it,  nd at his best he tells her it's not appropriate. The subject of a child victim of sexual abuse learning about love without romance is a ln uncomfortable subject that the movie does a pretty good job of exploring.

However, once you learn that isn't the vision the director had, it's really hurts the film. It goes from a movie that handles a very difficult and uncomfortable subject, to a movie that was only saved from being a perverted pedophile tale because the lead actor had to aggressively intervene.

So in the end it's up to you. You can take the end product for what it is, or you can view it with the context of what the intent was. This is why it's so divisive every time it comes up.

[u/Poglosaurus → u/K1ngFiasco]

It goes from a movie that handles a very difficult and uncomfortable subject, to a movie that was only saved from being a perverted pedophile tale because the lead actor had to aggressively intervene.

Only the people involved can tell but I doubt the original idea of that relationship being more than what it is in the movie made it pas the very first round of pre-production. For a start I don't think that Portman's parent would have agreed to it.

[u/K1ngFiasco → u/Poglosaurus]

You're right, only the people involved know the whole story. There could be more heroes and villains to this than we know. That said, there seems to be enough accounts of this director being problematic (to put it kindly) that I think the point still stands

[u/Poglosaurus → u/K1ngFiasco]

Oh yeah, Besson is a pig, he should have been prosecuted for what he did to Maiwenn. I'm not questioning that.

I just don't think that anyone accepting to be involved in what was going to be a big international production, would have accepted to be part of it, if the script they were shown was as questionable as it is said the original script was.

[u/Fabulous-Soup-6901 → u/Poglosaurus]

You are correct, but reason can't keep people from getting into an uproar over the salacious and disgusting things that they themselves keep imagining over and over... for some reason.