Young love, lust, passion, insecurity, loss, regret. Three hours of it. In French.
Abdellatif Kechiche adapts from a graphic novel, telling of the passionate first love affair of young teenage student Adèle for another woman. While this film has generated much interest for being a lesbian drama with some extremely frank and sustained sex scenes, it is rather, a supremely universal tale of that intense, uncontrollable first true love that will be achingly familiar to many.
When critics talk about a "brave" performance in relation to a female role, what they usually really mean is that the actress spends a lot of time naked. Yet, in a film featuring some of the most honest sex scenes in mainstream cinema (by which I mean, sweaty, grindy, lengthy, noisy sex that doesn't come with an orchestral soundtrack and a degree in Eisenstein montage theory), relative newcomer Adèle Exarchopoulos really delivers on the meaning of the word. For almost the entire (substantial) running time, Adèle has the camera thrust about three inches from her face, searching her for every slightest flinch, every furtive glance, every strained muscle, as the young actress has to conjure a lifetime of an emotional journey. It's a stunning and utterly compelling performance that forms the true narrative heart of the movie, and that powers forward this otherwise occasionally meandering tale.
What I can't let pass without comment though is the absolutely gratuitous, endless and utterly explicit scenes of... smoking. Whether eating, drinking, laughing, crying, fighting, fucking, or reclining on a chaise longue whilst being sketched by Jack, sorry, Emma; Adèle is seemingly never without a fag hanging out of the corner of her mouth. I enjoyed this movie in the company of two good friends who also happen to be a lesbian couple. When the credits began to roll I glanced over to find, not that they were making all gooey-eyed at each other, but that they were both frantically constructing roll-ups for the dash outside to light up. Ah... Vive l'Amour.
Rating: 4/5
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