Finally, an NC-17 that delivers! After sitting through most and snoring through some of Lust, Caution, my lust was cautioned all right. When that NC-17 label gets slapped on a film, I expect certain things. Don’t you? Here’s a movie only an adult can properly handle and appreciate … I want something to handle and appreciate, dammit. Blue Is the Warmest Color is that film.
Novel-lovin’ French teen Adèle (Adèle Exarchopoulos) is disillusioned by life. She, unfortunately, reminds me of Kristen Stewart. And it’s not just in look. Adèle responds to most prompts with open-mouthed hesitation. Her teen friends are a gaggle of 
frivolous idiots. Her new boyfriend brings her, literally, to tears. Sex with him exacerbates the feeling. Something is missing. Taking seven literature classes isn’t helping her mood any. (What the Hell, French high schools?) While out on a date, she spies an attractive blue-haired waif, Emma (Léa Seydoux); later Adèle sees Smurfette again while at a gay bar. She follows Emma to dyke bar. Adèle is out of her element, but can’t take her eyes off Emma. Emma stares back. Emma picks Adèle out and shelters her; it’s easy to forget how scary a bar scene is to a 17-year-old. Especially one with certain expectations.
Most of this early relationship is a tease. There are conversations and sketches (Emma is an artist) and cloud-gazing. We see the sexual chemistry. We’re waiting for it. Adèle’s homosexual masturbation fantasy was comparatively mild, but the first sex scene with her then boyfriend, though unexplosive, was explicit. We know we aren’t going to be cheated when these two finally get down to business. And we are not. Lips meet and then a quick cut to naked bodies. The sex scenes are long, music-less, aggressive. They seem real, uninhibited, unchoreographed. Many positions. A lot of heavy breathing. A lot of mouth and hand usage. This isn’t straight porn. These two want to enjoy themselves and the camera lets them. This is nothing shy of full graphic female sexual exploration. These are two women searching one another like Howard Carter looking for Tutankhamen.
I was overjoyed this picture didn’t delve the way an American film would – we have exactly one scene of Adèle being attacked by her (suddenly alienated) school friends and we leave it at that. Parents exist in this world as window-dressing. Adèle’s father openly hopes Emma’s boyfriend has a good career path. Hah! I don’t care what friends or parents or society things of Adèle’s self discovery. I want to know what Adèle thinks; I want to know what Emma thinks.
Blue Is the Warmest Color is a full three hours long. It will feel three hours long, too, even to the horniest of teenagers. I see it, sort of, as: suppose you reduced the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy to Frodo and Sam wandering endlessly around Middle Earth with all talk of the ring and Gollum replaced by hot graphic homosexual encounters. The excessive run time seemed like a ploy to diffuse the extended sex scenes – as if the director is trying to say, “see? There’s far more here than 
just the sex.” And, indeed, we do see Adèle as a complete person with school and friends and job prospects. The ploy had the exact opposite effect on me, however. I see her relationship with Emma as over 90% sexual. And it’s easy to see how once the polish is off the apple, so to speak, the Adèle-Emma relationship has serious issues and jealousy becomes the order of the day.
Do understand, however, no matter what you think of the film, the blue in Blue carries the day. It deserves a thumbs up based on the sex alone.
Innocence is red
Acceptance is Blue
Given this material
I’d rather not deliver a cliché at this time
Rated NC-17, 179 Minutes
D: Abdellatif Kechiche (does anybody associated with this film have a pronounceable name?)
W: Abdellatif Kechiche & Ghalia Lacroix
Genre: Sexual apocalypse
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: On-the-fence lesbians
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: True conservatives
