TIFF Movie Review – Blue Is the Warmest Colour (2013)

A lesbian couple experiences the emotional turmoil of trying to maintain the relationship.

A high school literature teacher has his students read passages from a book which deals with how men and woman view love; among those in attendance is Adèle (Adèle Exarchopoulos) who is going through a sexual identity crisis.  Sex with males is unfulfilling; however,  the teenager has a wet dream of a blue haired woman (Léa Seydoux) she glanced while walking down a street.  Fantasy gives way to reality as Adèle seeks out the source of her erotic visions and meets her at a gay bar.  A heated romance erupts which could burn out at any moment.

Moments that stand out are when Adèle hesitates to whisper in the ear of her soon to be lover and her appearance at an art gallery exhibition which seems to be a fitting conclusion to the story.  It is great that the actors are given the time to perform and the editing is not distracting.  The trouble is one could easily remove one of the three hours of screen time by taking out all of the explicit sex scenes and from that another quarter could be removed.  Adèle Exarchopoulos with her pouty lips comes across as adolescent sexpot as was the case of Brooke Shields in The Blue Lagoon (1980). 

Blue is to be found everywhere from the buildings to the clothing but for me it represents the sadness of a missed opportunity.  There is a scene in the bar before Adèle makes the contact with the object of her romantic pursuit and a middle-aged male patron offers the words of wisdom, “Love knows no gender.  Go with the one who loves you.”  The thoughtful theme is hijacked by the need to equate love with the intensity and propensity for people to have sex with each other.  Surely the discussion of the treasured human emotion can go beyond that for when encountered it carries on long after the orgasm is over.