‘The Little Thief’ (R)

Charlotte Gainsbourg, the young star of Claude Miller's "The Little Thief," has a fascinating opacity. At first glance, her features appear to have been too clumsily arranged for the camera to make sense of them. The chin, it seems, is too big and the eyes too cloaked and dim, and watching her, you may feel that her face doesn't "read" in the way that actresses' faces are supposed to. There's something blunted about it, something squelched, but it's exactly this blankness that draws you in.

Set in 1950, "The Little Thief" is the story of a slovenly, amoral girl who steals compulsively, without conscience or the slightest hint of remorse, and it's beautifully observed but enervated and, ultimately, doesn't amount to much. Gainsbourg herself is a captivating presence and she's perfect for her character, but in a sense, what she contributes exists almost completely outside the context of the movie. It's her face that mesmerizes us, not the character's.

Gainsbourg plays Janine, a 16-year-old who pouts through her long days at school, then runs off, slips into high heels and begins a sticky-fingered tour of local boutiques. Initially she seems dull-witted, but when she hikes up her skirt in a lingerie shop to slip a piece of expensive underwear over her garter belt, the planning and technique in her thievery is evident. Janine is a wild child of sorts, seemingly incapable of acting out of anything other than expedient self-interest.

The picture -- co-authored by Francois Truffaut and directed by Miller, his longtime assitant director -- seems to take place under three feet of slightly muddy water. Like Gainsbourg's face, it seems filled with meaning that just won't come clear.

It's possible that working in Truffaut's shadow was inhibiting for Miller. The film shows signs of being a sort of unofficial homage, and it has Truffaut's sensitivity but little of his rigor or tough-mindedness. Miller takes his cue from Truffaut and doesn't sentimentalize his adolescent heroine or turn her into a victim, but having avoided the cliches, he doesn't quite seem to know what to put in their place.

The movie is at its best when it's at its toughest, such as when Janine betrays the confidence of a young woman (Clotilde de Bayser) who has given her a job as a maid. Or when she turns her back on the earnest young choirmaster who befriends her and urges her to take secretarial training. The scenes with this bookish married man (Didier Bezace), who is too delicate to take responsibility for relieving Janine of her virginity, have a vividness and urgency. For an instant, you know exactly what the character's feelings are.

There's a kind of purity in Miller's narrowness of focus. But psychologically, he is content merely to document. What's missing is Truffaut's emotional clinicism and precision. (It was missing from a good deal of later Truffaut too.) After a while, Janine's aimlessness seems to have rubbed off on the director.

Miller and his collaborators must have known how unsatisfying this chic affectlessness was and, to compensate, have forced a pat and unconvincing conclusion onto their story. After Janine escapes from the prison where she is sent when the cops catch up with her, she is given a camera and, in the process, a new mission. The suggestion goes even further in the epilogue, which confers a purpose to this wasted life and contradicts everything that has gone before. It's inconceivable that Truffaut would have allowed this to stand. Or at least let's hope not.