Blue Is the Warmest Color (2013)

BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR  (2013)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
    D: Abdellatif Kechiche
    Adèle Exarchopoulos, Léa Seydoux, Salim Kechiouche,
    Benjamin Siksou, Mona Walravens, Alma Jodorowsky
A three-hour movie about two girls in love. Adèle Exarchopoulos (brown eyes, brown hair) plays Adèle, watchful, tentative, a high school student still trying to figure things out and fit in. Léa Seydoux (blue eyes, blue hair) plays Emma, older, in college, an adventurous free spirit who has all the outgoing self-confidence Adèle lacks. They exchange glances on the street, run into each other at a nightclub, hang out together on a park bench, and fall in love. The love scenes in this got a lot of attention and earned the film an NC-17 rating. They're as hot as anything ever in a mainstream movie (leave it to the French), but that's not all the movie's about. It's about growing and changing, identity and risk and acceptance and finding your place in the world. What's more intimate than the naked groping and smooching and butt-slapping is the way Kechiche's camera closes in on the faces of the two leads and stays there, leaving them completely exposed, with nothing to cover up with and nowhere to hide. Exarchopoulos, especially, is amazing, playing an emotional open book trying, without knowing quite how, to project an air of composure and control. The film's original title is "Adèle's Life: Chapters 1 & 2", suggesting that more chapters will follow. That might not happen. It's been reported that Seydoux and Exarchopoulos were not entirely happy working with Kechiche, and the movie leaves you with a real sense that both characters have moved on. We haven't seen the last of the actresses playing them, that's for sure.