Blue Is the Warmest Color

This ardent and affecting French love story, now unfairly categorized as that three-hour lesbian movie, hits wide release after taking home the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Sparks will fly. And not just for the explicit girl-on-girl action that takes up only a small percentage of its running time. In detailing the relationship between blue-collar Adle (Adle Exarchopoulos), 15, and Emma (La Seydoux), an older, sophisticated art student, Blue Is the Warmest Color sweeps you up on waves of humor, heartbreak and ravishing romance. Director and co-writer Abdellatif Kechiche (The Secret of the Grain) follows Adle and Emma through a decade of roller-coaster emotions that are shaped and broken by sex, love, betrayal and an unforgiving class system. The politics of the film, loosely adapted from Julie Marohs 2010 graphic novel, can be read on the expressive faces of these two unlikely lovers. Exarchopoulos and Seydoux, who deservedly shared the acting prize at Cannes, give performances of unparalleled intimacy. Seydoux, 28, claimed the nude scenes made her feel like a prostitute but denies the sex was real (We had fake pussies on. You have something to protect and tape it under. I dont make love onscreen). Nonetheless, she achieves a stabbing pathos as Emma painfully parts with Adle. Exarchopoulos, 19, is a ball of fire in a breakthrough performance of startling power. Though she finds a fulfilling career as a teacher, Adle never loses the stinging memory of her first amour. Love hurts in Blue Is the Warmest Color. Thats why it sticks with you.