Blue is the Warmest Color - Review

After a chance encounter with an artist with blue hair, Adele begins a multiple year journey to learn how to discover herself, her needs, and her wants as an adult in Blue is the Warmest Color.



I went into this movie fully knowing what to expect because of the reputation it gained after Cannes. It was both praised and criticized for it's NC-17, graphic portrayal of a same-sex relationship involving a confused, underage girl. There was also a lot of complaining after it failed to receive a Best Foreign Film nomination at the Academy Awards. After seeing it for myself, I wouldn't say it's the masterpiece people made it out to be. 

The way I see it... this would have been a decent movie if it was about 90min shorter and wasn't full of the random, graphic sex scenes. I feel like the scenes were there primarily for shock value as they didn't really hold any relevance to the plot and had absolutely no reason to be that graphic. As a result it took away from the plot. If I wanted to see something like that I could go to a porn website and see the exact same thing.
The length was an issue primarily because a majority of the film was filler. By the time the main character Adele even meets Emma, the girl with blue hair, I was bored and had been wondering what the past 45min had to do with the plot. Even after she enters a relationship with Emma, I felt there were a lot of scenes that did not have to be there or ran too long. Watching Adele teach a kindergarten class for 10min is a perfect example. We get it, she became a teacher. Watching her teach has no importance to her relationship with Emma. It didn't need to be there. It was almost like each hour was an act and I mean it when I say it could have been cut in half and been as effective.

The bright spot by far was the performance by Adele Exarchopoulos. She truly was fantastic, but I think she was overshadowed by overall poor execution and poor, underdeveloped supporting characters. Reading a synopsis of the movie gives you more than the actual film does.
I am glad the Academy excluded this movie because it didn't deserve to be there. Bottom line. I would have been happy if Exarchopoulos received a nomination for her work, but it would have justified the critics praise that I honestly feel is undeserved.

Sorry to say it, but this was another average lovers quarrel that ran too long and had unnecessarily raunchy sex scenes. Nothing special.

The Great Gatsby will open Cannes 2013

This has been a pretty slow week so far, but we got word today that The Great Gatsby, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan, will open the 2013 Cannes Film Festival in France. Gatsby was one of many victims of schedule changes by the studios and was originally set to be released on Christmas last year. The film was delayed until May 10, 2013.

This is a bit of an odd move seeing that the release date is 5 days before Cannes even starts, so it kind of defeats the purpose of "premiering" a film to open the festival. This will mark the second film directed by Baz Luhrmann to open Cannes and the third to be screened. In 1992 his film Strictly Ballroom was screened and in 2001 Moulin Rouge opened the festival.