La vie d'Adèle 2013

Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine: The film is like a tough exam that everybody aced. The director, the actresses, the moviegoer - we all deserve a tres bien. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: The movie goes on for three hours without an emotional letup-it's finally overwhelming. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: A routine love story elevated by one of the year's most magnetic performances. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: The performances are nothing less than astonishing. Read more

Justin Chang, Variety: It's a measure of the honesty and generosity of Kechiche's storytelling that the picture's explicit sexuality and extreme running time feel consistent with his raw, sensual embrace of all aspects of life. Read more

A.A. Dowd, AV Club: While the director takes care to show how Adele struggles with social pressure, hiding her sexuality from her friends and parents, that aspect never hijacks the narrative. This is a drama of self-discovery, not a social-issues film. Read more

Mike D'Angelo, AV Club: Blue Is The Warmest Color is familiar in its broad outline but bracingly specific in its minute details, and it traffics in feelings so raw that they're almost painful to observe. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: So full of passions and appetites, it's impossible for it not to exhaust you. Yet, isn't too much of a good thing better than not enough of it? Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: About our appetites-for love, connection, life fully and vibrantly lived-and how, at the end of the day, we still end up hungry. Read more

Drew Hunt, Chicago Reader: Seydoux and Exarchopoulos deliver worthy performances, but Kechiche mishandles his ultrawidescreen frame by shooting almost every scene in the same shallow-focus medium close-up. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: The two actresses, seen up close or from far away, are extraordinary. The emotional trajectory of their passion is entirely believable and ultimately heartbreaking. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: An astounding, complex film about the ecstasy, the danger and the beauty of love. Read more

Leah Greenblatt, Entertainment Weekly: The most explicit organ in Blue Is the Warmest Color, believe it or not, is the heart. Read more

Jordan Hoffman, Film.com: If you don't see yourself in its depiction of intense emotion I both envy and pity you. Read more

Jordan Mintzer, Hollywood Reporter: A sprawling, emotionally absorbing tale of young love from Franco-Tunisian auteur Abdellatif Kechiche. Read more

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: The truth of its emotionally raw, romantic drama is eternal and universal. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: Forget the controversy and see Blue is the Warmest Color for what it truly is: a warm and compassionate ode to the vagaries of the heart. Read more

John Anderson, Newsday: The more wondrous things about "Blue Is the Warmest Color" include its emotional honesty, precision, abandon and need. Read more

Anthony Lane, New Yorker: From the moment when Adele first catches sight of Emma, on a busy crosswalk, the movie restores your faith in the power of the coup de foudre and yet redoubles your fear of its effect; love, like lightning, can both illuminate and scorch. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: An undeniably moving picture which is both problematic and astonishingly acted, sometimes frustratingly wrongheaded and occasionally lit by flashes of insight. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: A fairly simple, unevenly told and expertly acted romance about two young French women in love. Read more

Manohla Dargis, New York Times: The movie feels far more about Mr. Kechiche's desires than anything else. Read more

Michael Sragow, Orange County Register: This exploration of tumultuous romance is rare in its scope and frankness. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: This three-hour portrait of a young French woman named Adele (Adele Exarchopoulos) captures the dizzying, all-consuming ardor of first love, the joyous discovery of bringing your body and mind into union with another human being. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: It's an almost overpowering experience - a movie that transcends voyeurism and invites empathy. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: Love hurts in Blue Is the Warmest Color. That's why it sticks with you. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: It's perhaps the first great love story of the 21st century that could belong only to this century. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: Make no mistake, "Blue Is the Warmest Color" constitutes a breakthrough, in addition to being the best film of 2013. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: What makes this melancholy relationship drama play out as more than a hot lesbian remake of Annie Hall is the vibrant connection between the two gifted actresses at its center. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: The film's French title is "The Life of Adele, Chapters 1 and 2." At the fade-out, you feel, with sympathy and hope, how much more lies ahead of her. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: A love story so erotically charged that it short circuits our higher functions. Read more

Jon Frosch, The Atlantic: A shattering masterpiece about sexual awakening, heartbreak, and self-discovery. Read more

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: Blue is the Warmest Colour is too exceptional a film to be defined by its controversy. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: One of the year's best films. Read more

Guy Lodge, Time Out: An intimate epic in every sense of the term, its every subtle emotional turn rendered widescreen on [Adele] Exarchopoulos's exquisitely expressive face. Read more

Keith Uhlich, Time Out: If I can't quite get beyond a kind of clinical admiration for the film, it's due to Kechiche's unadorned verite aesthetic, a cinema consciously bereft of the poetic flourish-for me a fault, for others a benefit. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, Village Voice: Somehow Seydoux and Exarchopoulos manifest an idea of desire, a mood that performers and directors often fail to capture even when there's good on-set chemistry. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: A great movie. Read more