Adèle (Adèle Exarchopoulos), a quiet 17 year-old high schooler, lives with her middle-class parents outside the northern French city of Lille. After an unsuccessful relationship with a charming fellow student (Jeremie Laheurte), she enters the embraces of the alluring, blue-haired Emma (Léa Seydoux), a lesbian graduate student from a bourgeois-bohemian family. At first, the two are magnetic. But as class becomes a sneakily toxic force in their relationship, the film becomes a study of the ways socioeconomic differences come to bear on romantic life. Brilliantly acted and intensely erotic, Kechiche’s film has been instantly likened to Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain as one of the great big-screen same-sex romances to date. By the time it reaches its final shot, Blue becomes an experience that will leave viewers dizzy, exhilarated, and deeply moved. In French with subtitles. |