One look at the cover for the Blu-ray of 1984’s Year of the Jellyfish and I found myself transported back to my youth. I don’t know if all male teens in that decade lusted after lithe and lovely Valerie Kaprisky, but I sure did.

When I received the Blu-ray, I couldn’t recall if I ever actually watched a Kaprisky movie or if I just ogled photos of Kaprisky in magazines. All these years later, Jellyfish allowed me a chance to see if Kaprisky could act as well as look gorgeous.

Teenaged Chris Riveaut (Kaprisky) vacations in Saint-Tropez with her mother Claude (Caroline Cellier) while her father Peter (Antoine Nikola) remains at work in Paris. This stirs up some old drama, as a married older friend of the family Vic (Jacques Perrn) previously seduced and impregnated her, which led to an abortion.

This didn’t temper Chris’s carnal desires, though, and she sets her sights on Roman (Bernard Giraudeau), an older man who pimps young girls for wealthy men. Chris’s desires lead to a mix of complications.

Abortion! Prostitution! Casual teen sex! These topics lead one to believe Jellyfish will offer a pretty dark, serious drama.

And it does go down some of those paths at times, though it mainly comes across as the banal lives of the idle rich. Despite all the plot’s room for melodrama, it feels as though little happens much of the time here.

At its heart, Jellyfish wants to become a thriller about a femme fatale. While nominally a “coming of age” film, instead we largely view Chris as something of a sociopath, a girl on the cusp of womanhood who uses her beauty in vicious, manipulative ways.

However, the story doesn’t convey this well, so much of it just consists of dull interactions on the beach or at dinners. The characters rarely demonstrate much real life.

Admittedly, I suspect that acts as some of the film’s point. Jellyfish wants to show how vivacious young people end up as internally dead as their parents.

Unfortunately, the filmmakers choose odd ways to pursue this path, and that leads to the misbegotten “thriller” side of things. Strangely, Jellyfish adds noir-style narration 40 minutes into the tale, and this comes out of nowhere.

I get the impression that test audiences grew impatient with the slow-moving film so the producers added occasional voiceover to spell out matters. This doesn’t work, as the commentary appears clumsy, and it shows up infrequently enough that it turns into a distraction.

Though nominally Chris’s movie, we spend a lot of time with Claude as well. I suppose these moments intend to act as a contrast between Chris’s young POV and Claude’s more middle-aged perspective, but instead, Claude’s scenes just act as a not very effective detour.

We spend enough time with Claude that she offers a substantial facet of the movie, but we still don’t get much understanding of her. Beyond the diffident husband who works all the time and ignores her, we fail to find much depth to the role.

The same goes for Chris, who never quite coalesces into a real personality. Again, the movie seems to fashion her as a budding sociopath, but this feels more like an excuse to get Kaprisky naked than anything else.

And boy does Kaprisky get naked! At the start of this review, I indicated that I couldn’t recall if I ever viewed an actual Kaprisky movie or if I just knew her from photos.

As Jellyfish ran, I realized I’d seen it in the 80s – or at least parts of it. I rented the VHS and copied the “good parts” for my own compilation tape.

This meant skin, skin and more skin. Given how often Kaprisky and others strip, that turned into a pretty extended “greatest hits” reel.

Kaprisky may well spend more time topless or fully nude than clothed in Jellyfish. Throw in ample nudity from Cellier and others and you’ll find nearly wall-to-wall female flesh here.

Which I regarded as a good thing in the 80s and still feel today. Kaprisky looked amazing, as did Cellier, and their many nude scenes make Jellyfish eminently watchable.

Too bad the actual story lacks much to make it engaging. Beyond the nudity, the movie offers little substance.

Year of the Jellyfish appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 1.85:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. Though much of the movie looked good, some problems damaged the overall impact.

In particular, print flaws became a persistent concern. Throughout the movie, I saw specks, scratches, blotches, tears, “cigarette burns”, lines and marks, so expect a lot of these distractions.

Otherwise, the image worked well, with positive sharpness. A little softness crept in at times, but the majority of the film demonstrated nice accuracy.

No issues with jagged edges or moiré effects occurred, and I saw no edge haloes. Light grain implied no overuse of noise reduction.

Colors went with a sunny hue for the many beach scenes, while nighttime shots opted for a modest blue tint. The image made these look appropriate.

Blacks felt deep and dense, and shadows seemed largely smooth and clear. If the movie got a good cleanup, it would fare nicely, but the many print flaws made it a “C-”.

Don’t expect much from the ordinary LPCM monaural soundtrack of Jellyfish, as it lacks real positives. Music appeared acceptably reproduced, though the songs and score lacked much range.

Effects didn’t get much to do in this talky character piece, but they came across as clean and without obvious distortion. Dialogue felt stiff at times due to dubbing, but the lines still felt intelligible and without edginess. Nothing here impressed but the track seemed adequate for its vintage and the story.

The disc opens with ads for Oranges & Sunshine, Jigsaw (1962), Dementia and My Afternoons with Margueritte. We also get the trailer for Jellyfish but no other extras.

As a catalog of naked European women circa the mid-1980s, Year of the Jellyfish excels. As a narrative character drama, it proves unsatisfying. The Blu-ray comes with flawed visuals, adequate audio and no real bonus features. As much as I enjoyed all the nudity, the movie itself leaves me cold.