La vie d’Adele

Director:  Abdellatif Kechiche, Main Cast: Léa Seydoux, Adèle Exarchopoulos

We witness how Adele (Adele Exarchopoulos) grows from a teenager into a young woman, discovering her interest and then passion for Emma (Lea Seydoux), an art student and a painter few years older than her. The story is captivating and both actresses give a convincing portrayal of their characters. The director uses the visual medium very effectively to showcase all Adele’s different social interactions, with her high school classmates, at the gay bar, at the family dinners, with Emma’s friends and, of course, with Emma herself. We sympathise and empathise with Adele. We watch her inner monologues and struggles when, after jumping into a situation without really thinking (with quite some courage, I must say), she has a “now what?” moment. I have some issues with the editing: some cuts are too abrupt and some scene are too long or plainly unnecessary to the narrative (e.g. sleeping scenes in the second half of the movie). With regard to the sex scenes, I get the burning passion but, after a while, it seems a mere voyeuristic exercise and odd, silly things start to pop in my mind…like…”aren’t they cold after spending so much time naked?” Or “their esthetician is very good but they must be spending gazillions of euros on waxing”, probably not what the director had in mind. Anyway, these might be considered minor flaws. Beguiling —7.5/10