Happy Labor Day! In keeping with the tradition of this blog, this movie has absolutely nothing to do with the holiday.Adele (Adele Exarchopoulos) is a teenager desperate to be in love but her high school boyfriend is just not doing it for her. Then she meets Emma (Lea Seydoux), a college senior studying painting, and realizes that love is a lot more complicated than she could have imagined.
I don't know what is happening lately, but every film I have picked up has been at least two and a half hours long. This one is three. That is a long time to watch teenage French lesbians.
That being said, this isn't not a bad coming-of-age/coming-out film. Exarchopoulos is a charming, expressive actress and elevates the character, who could have just as easily been grating, to a sympathetic place. Seydoux almost feels miscast because she's such a powerhouse of intensity. I kept wanting more about her, not the main character.
The film has a very dreamy feel to it. There's no real sense of time passing, but it follows Adele from high school through getting a job as a teacher so it must cover at least ten years. That could be good or not, depending on your preference. I found it slightly jarring.
You know how I feel about character dramas so I can't really say that I loved this film but I do recognize that some people would. The French title translates as 'The Life of Adele, Chapters 1 and 2' so maybe a sequel is be along sooner or later.
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