I completely agree with you. After reading all of the comments online, I was expecting a weirdo, creepy vibe from it. I hadn't seen either version of the movie, so I went straight for the "extended" cut.
Yes, Mathilda obviously has a crush on Lon. This is clear, and given the circumstances, not surprising. She's grown up without a real "man" in her life since her father was a drug addict who hit her. Lon was her savior, he was like Superman to her, it was the man in her life that she had always needed/wanted to just be there for her and protect her, so as a "coming of age" 12-year old heading into puberty, her obsession with Lon is understandable.
However I felt that it was made VERY clear several times that Lon has NO interest in her as a lover, and ONLY as a fatherly figure. He rejects her advances several times, very bluntly. I think sometimes there's a slightly awkward "tension" between the two because HE'S experiencing that same social awkwardness. He hasn't dealt with young children before, he's slightly slow (possibly) or at the very least, immature, and not exactly a social butterfly. So when Mathilda starts saying these things to him, he obviously doesn't know exactly how to handle them without completely being a jerk, so we can sense his awkward tension in these situations. Nevertheless, it is still made clear that he has no interest in her as a lover, but his feelings towards her are a fatherly-love. Don't people see how uncomfortable and stiff he was when she asked him to sleep in the same bed as her? He clearly wanted no part of it.
People who've gotten that vibe are either sheltered prudes or are just completely missing the point of the unique (and unconventional) dynamic of Lon and Mathilda's relationship. She has misplaced feelings for him, understandable, but they are definitely not reciprocated.

She was 12 years old (movie) and 13 in real life. They showed her pulling up her panties after getting out of bed with Leon. Physically, she is ready for sex. Women used to get married and have children at that age. Edgar A. Poe married his FIRST COUSIN Virginia Clemm when she was 12 years old for crying out loud!! And now, centuries later people wince and call you a pedo if you have sex with a female 2 days before her 18th birthday. Like 18 is some magical number that transforms a girl into a woman overnight.

There absolutely is a love interest between them. Not from his side, other than loving her as one would a daughter, but she directly tells that she's in love with him.
There is nothing perverted or pedophile about this. It's not even uncommon for a young girl to have a crush on an adult. It's not that different from them being in love with celebrity idols. It passes.
Maybe you only watched the theatrical version, where some of the scenes, that make this clear, were removed. Try watching the international version, which is 23 minutes longer.

Nonsense. While he loves her as a daughter, she absolutely is in love with him.
This isn't perverted, and it isn't uncommon for an 11-year old girl, to have a crush on an adult, that will naturally never lead to anything more. It's not all that different from young kids/teens being in love with celebrities.
Make sure to watch the international version, which is 23 minutes longer than the theatrical version. I hear some of the scenes about the relationship were removed in the shorter version.

I guess none of you saw the deleted scene where Leon has sex with the plant.
Evacuation Com

It wouldn't be crazy for her to love him romantically, but not sexually as she is too little to know what that is and didn't appear to be in puberty yet. However, she grew up in a rejecting kind of family and some girls become hyper sexual because of that, but still I think she's too little.
Anyway, what I previously said about Leon is the main point as he's the main character. He clearly loves and values the plant, thus he's in love with life after having been caught up with death all the time. Same theme in Blade Runner.

Anyone that can't see a Love Interest between Leon and Mathilda, is totally missing the story altogether.A Love Interest is definitely there for all to see. The argument has always been and remains, was it Sexual, Paternal or Platonic? No matter what name you give it a Love Interest exists between them. The entire story evolves around this premise. I personally don't see it as Sexual, neither can I give it a name, and maybe that was Besson's intention when he wrote the script.

HE loves her like family. Matilda mistakes this for sexual love. seriously how did you all miss this

This is craziness!
He has a horrible empty life and she has a horrible empty life due to her criminal parents. They find each other and have family type of love, not sexual.
Leon is willing to die for her like a father would for his daughter.
Leon also wants to save a plant!!
He's like the character Roy in Blade Runner who has seen lots of death, is dying, and comes to value life very much.
It's just because Portman is pretty that people think sex, but honestly after watching the film, how can you say that?

you know, other than the part where they literally say i love you to each other. oh yeah and the time matilda tried to have sex with him

Very Nice Compliment. Thank You Very Much!!!

Best and most succinct post on this issue that I've read here in the past 17 years. Thanks.

I disagree with the OP. There is definitely a Love interest between Leon and Mathilda. The film never tries to hide this fact and we see it more clearly as the story unfolds. What kind of Love has always been the question and remains the most popular topic for discussion.

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All posts suggesting that should stop.
What arrogance.
there's nothing erotic about an 11-year old.
Ssdly, you fail to grasp the distinction between:
(a) finding an 11-year-old erotic
and
(b) observing that someone else is portraying an 11-year-old in suggestive situations.
Evacuation Com

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For whatever it may be worth, I completely agree with everything you say about the film, but have no problem at all, nor did Portman or her parents, with Besson showing the sexual risk-taking of her young character. Besson goes out of his way to use sexual symbolism (e.g. her pose on the landing, her grasping two of Leon's fingers, her interaction with the hotel clerk). Portman actually added in the Madonna and Marilyn Monroe skits on her own. All Besson asked her to do was Gene Kelly.
To me, however, this was akin to the young girl in
American Graffiti
, it was all innocent gaming, an attempt to astonish/horrify the otherwise bored Leon/John Milner. In terms of film references, there was a little of Velda's fruitless interactions with Mike Hammer in
Kiss Me Deadly
.
http://www.clubecinema.com/images/1955/13134-Kiss-Me-Deadly1955-.jpg
To me, there is a vast difference between a young girl mimicking the vamping of an adult, akin perhaps to boys playing with toy guns or looking tough, and a film suggesting that an adult taking advantage of such a child was not only okay but something beautiful (something Louis Malle did with
Pretty Baby
).
The unfortunate fate of Besson's film with some is that Portman as a child was attractive enough to some that they wanted to take her playacting seriously, not like the lonely little girl in
12 and Holding
or the young girl in
American Graffiti
or the boy in Cassavetes'
Gloria
, but rather like the already auctioned whore's daughter with the photographer in the Malle film.
Besson always denied and continues to deny that he was going for the latter, as has Reno and Portman, and I see no reason to assume otherwise. Especially since he included the original script in his book about the film, noting the changes he made to the original plan and why it made sense to him and actually energized him in a away the original script did not.

Even some of the interactions with her and Leon (completely on her end)
This is the only point of your excellent post with which I disagree. In the final 1/3 of the movie, Leon subtly but unmistakably moves from having 0 romantic interest in Mathilda to developing a definite interest.
As just one example: when he rescues her in the DEA office, the expression on his face and his body language as they embrace is decidedly not paternal or platonic.
And in his final speech to Mathilda, which all people who hurl the pedo sobriquet at anyone who sees something unwholesome in his film perforce completely ignore (is that actually the only time in the movie where he says more than 8 syllables?), any honest reading of that speech leaves absolutely no doubt whatsoever that he is now finally ready to engage in the type of romantic relationship Mathilda wanted all along, and which they would have embarked on had he lived.
I'm not saying it would have been sexual only she truly loves him and he now truly loves her but it certainly would have included that element.
Evacuation Com

A nice thing about fiction is each viewer has the option of interpreting certain things the way they want. But I can never agree with your POV on this movie for the simple reason that it is art, and artists sometimes start with one set of concepts and their completed work ends up being something quite different. We can't pull up their prior drafts and say they are necessarily relevant.
I don't know if you've ever been to the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame in Cleveland, but it has many different artifacts representing the music many of us grew up with. I remember one display in particular, it was the handwritten copy of a famous song, I believe "Bridge Over Troubled Waters." Might have been a different song, it was a few years ago.
But the fascinating part to me was how certain things were crossed out and written differently, to finally arrive at the lyrics we all know and love. It is part of the creative process, and the words or phrases that were crossed out are not relevant.
That is what Besson did with his movie. I suspect all of his movies. Just as famous painters did when they made several sketches before selecting the one that became their famous work of art.
.... TxMike ....
Sometimes I think we're alone in the universe, and sometimes not.

I was pretty much done with this discussion but I'll elaborate on the points I was trying to make. I've written scripts. I've read scripts. I understand story structure and how it relates to an overarching theme. This in no way makes me a professional writer or that I have some special clout that would make my opinions more "true" but I do think it should lend credence to my understanding of story structure and prose.
In my personal opinion going all the way back to 1994 when I first watched The Professional (Leon: The Professional didn't become the title till the extended cut here in the US) I noticed some (shall we say) hint's or leanings to a potentially sexual ideology in the relationship between Mathilda and Leon. In all fairness it was one-sided and barely touched upon (not trying to make a joke here honestly) but again in my opinion it was there. Even before I ever penned my first script or read a screenplay I noticed it.
I'm not saying it is a bad movie (personally it is one of my favorite all-time films and honestly my favorite Gary Oldman film) but I think there is a leftover sexual component in the actual film. I wanted to use the original script as more of a reference that, in the original story, this relationship actually existed on that level. In my writing (and I'd like to assume many other authors do this as well) once the groundwork for a story is in your head you tend to sprinkle bits and pieces of that subtext in everything that makes up the dynamic.
While I will completely agree that the original script and the filmed script are widely different (especially in the dynamic of Mathilda and Leon) and changed to match the actors and the ages of said actors the overarching story by and large is very similar. For example when they go to the hotel and she has the conversation with the front desk manager and he refers to Leon as her father she corrects him and says lover. Obviously this causes issues which moves them and the story along. There is a scene reminiscent of the original script where she is lying on his bed kind of clutching her stomach as if having butterflies and thinking of Leon. Even some of the interactions with her and Leon (completely on her end) are symbolic of a girl wanting more than what is socially acceptable. Leon throughout all of this either doesn't respond in kind or completely shuts her down.
Again these are just my personal opinions but that is what I see. Every time I watch The Professional I still enjoy the movie and I try to ignore those observations but I think it is nothing more than a leftover relationship subtext that wasn't completely written out. My only real observation in all of these discussions is that if Besson, Reno and Portman +family really wanted to make sure that the original script and story was changed to reflect the removal of the relationship dynamic why then did some of this subtext still bleed through? From everything a lot of you had said it was imperative that Portman's parents, Reno and Besson remove all traces of that relationship dynamic.

'dehietyi' - Without taking sides I must say bringing in a script from a different movie, one that was not made, doesn't add clarity to the discussion. The only script that is relevant for this discussion is the one the movie was actually filmed from, the one written for the much younger Mathilda. The fact that Besson had an older character in mind initially, one that would initiate sex with Leon, in no way implies any actions or intents for the character that was actually filmed.
.... TxMike ....
Sometimes I think we're alone in the universe, and sometimes not.

No offense to DFC-2 or anything.Everyone has opinions; myself included. I've been known to hold-fast to my opinions and have tunnel vision so I get that pattern. I like to keep a mantra in the back of my mind every time I talk on a message board online. "In the entire history of the internet those opinions which have been changed is zero." If we all agreed on everything this would would be a very boring place. Passion is the spice of life and I enjoy a good debate even if nothing is solved or gained. Cheers.

I'm going to stop discussing this now
Ha! You're debating with someone I have on ignore. I can imagine what things he's saying. Stop wasting your time, bro!
Evacuation Com

First, you want to insist that the script that wasn't used for the film has more to do with what the film intended than the script that was used for the film. In fact, that the script that wasn't used was the only meaningful source.
Second, you want to insist that because some other directors call later editions of their films director's cuts, that a director claiming to have made the film that he wanted for the theatrical release must be insane. the short edition was the only edition available anywhere in the world until the extended edition was released in 1996. It wasn't ever just an American cut in 1994. Actually, directors creating bloated editions and calling them director's cuts is a recent and ugly fad. Besson is more normal in not doing that.
Third, even his extended edition goes no further sexually than the director's cut. the main thing it does is have her go with Leon to kill people and celebrate afterwards. If you had any sense of the real story arc in the film, namely, Leon protecting her childhood, it would be obvious that her participation and enjoyment of the killing game didn't help and was a logical cut.
Fourth, if you know Besson's 1995 book about the film, then you also know that he specifically notes that the original script wasn't used beyond the set-up. You also have Reno's, Portman's, and Besson's thinking processes about the characters and making the film. All of which blow your theory out of the water
Fifth and finally, I agree that we are unlikely to change each other's minds, but it isn't because I have not read the original script, Besson's books about the film and others of his films, and many other sources, and seen each of his feature films, it is that you have tunnel vision for the few things you want to believe and will not even try to view the larger picture of his life, film history, and treatment of others.