This is a movie that I had huge expectations in, almost as much as in Hunger Games pt.2 (which is a great movie and even better than pt. 1, go see it if you haven't yet!). It was hard to go into the movie theater without being prejudiced before and having some ideas (and hopes) about what the film would be like because of all the stuff I had heard in advance (very graphic sex scenes, one of the best movies of the year).
I won't give away too much of the story, just so much: I am disappointed.
The whole movie is three (!) hours long. The first hour shows mostly the daily routine of 17-year-old Adèle (played by Adèle (surprise!) Exarchopoulos) at school.... *sarcasm on* yes, how very interesting! *sarcasm off* By the time she finally gets together with beautiful, mysterious Emma (played by Lea Seydoux, the female villain from Mission Impossible 4) who is a total cliché of the flamboyant art student, you are very likely to have yawned a few times or shifted in your seat wondering when the movie was finally going to develop a plot.
Coming to talk about the oh-so-graphic sex scenes. Journalists have not exaggerated when they described those scenes as hot, BUT.... author Julie Maroh - the woman who whote the comic on which the movie is based - described those scenes best when she compared them to porn, saying that "the gay and queer people laughed because it's not convincing, and found it ridiculous" while guys will probably be "feasting their eyes on an incarnation of their fantasies". EXACTLY. There is not much more to say about it. Many times I was thinking I was watching internet porn or something. It is very clear where director Abdellatif Kechiche got his "inspiration" from. I am not saying porn is bad or evil. I am saying, however, if you want to make art, you should aim higher. It's actually what you owe the lesbian audience whose love life you are trying to picture.
Apart from those three things (length, boringness and ridiculous sex scenes), the movie is better than many other lesbian movies. It avoids the typical shallowness and uptightness, and the actresses do a very good job. The (straight) people I saw the movie with liked it much better than me, so maybe the movie is more enjoyable for a straight audience.
RATING: 3/5
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