Redundant and unnecessary.

As Good As It Gets

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

First of all, this is the film for open minded and honest viewers. It does not require "educated" or "well informed" viewers, but only honest to themselves. For this reason, there are a lot of middle class, small minded intellectual ( lesbian) critics who will attack this film for not being "truthful" to the"real" nature of woman to woman love, and being seen through a male gaze. However, this is actually a film about woman to woman love, and woman to woman attraction, sex, union, betrayal, break up, and closure. It is also a film about first real love, and first (and possibly only) real sexual connection with another person. The fact that the director is a man does not mean so much: two lead actresses performed that relationship on the screen with an attitude, apparently firmly believing in what they were doing, much more than big names in dozed and "psychologically framed", "decent" other lesbian themed movies. This is a story about emotions and psychological development of a young woman told in a way which is different than usual: she feels the things with her body, with her skin, with her lips, and thats how she learns stuff and makes mistakes. She is not well read and well educated and she does not have anyone to talk to, so she cannot rationalize what is happening to her. She takes the stuff as they are, and thats why everything looks somehow raw, illogical and stupidly done, because thats how the life is. The film does have certain slippages in the narrative. The Emma story part is a bit underdeveloped, and requires a bit of viewers' reading into the story. For instance, in the end, after the break up, it might seem that Emma is happy with the new partner; however, it is also suggested that actually its not about being happy: she just made her new life settled and bearable. She is able to function as a person and artist with a new partner, to have a family, while with Adele she was painfully aware that it cannot last, and that this intensity cannot be functional. Too much love and obsession can kill the love, so Emma lets it happen, rather than to sacrifice other stuff for love. She wants Adele to change, and become more socially accommodated for her, and when it does not happen, Emma lets their love fade, preoccupied with her career. One mistake, Adele's meaningless affair with a guy, was enough for Emma to take her revenge and end their love. This part is a bit unclear: was she really hurt that much, or was she already aware, even before that, how impossible their love was? It seems the latter is at stake. It also seems that she got over Adele, but that is just her high class training on how to handle something potentially painful. In the end, lets just say, dear lesbians, dont pretend that lesbian sex is not that lustful. It is, just it does not happen with that intensity with everyone. That line, between authentic sex and vanilla sex, is very well drawn in the last scene, when Emma admits that sex with her new(old) partner is "different" than with Adele. Love is a heavy thing, and when it really happens, it leaves a deep trace, not only in one's mind, but also on every part of one's body. Also, real love and attraction cannot survive in the life full of trivialities and other frustrations. Love without calculations never lasts. Unlike Adele, who has had it for the first time, Emma, who is older, knows it, and thats why she ends it without looking back, thats why she is a cruel one. This is the part which could have been more underlined in words and dialogues, but than the film would have been a bit intellectualized, and the director apparently wanted to avoid it. If you are open minded, don't miss this movie, because even your children will talk about it.

"Blue is the Warmest Color" deliberately swims in unsafe waters to emerge above the usual movies about homosexuality, but the artistic licenses of competent (and straight) director AbdellatifKechiche prevented a good story from drawing a larger and diverse audience. I don't mind graphic sexuality and one pour of raw emotion can never hurt a movie but talk about overplaying it. There's so much sex that the line between a fascinating life immersion and a sordid fixation on female anatomic details is crossed, and more than once. Ironically, there's something so honest and bold in the performances of Adele Exarchopoulos (Adele) and Lea Seydoux (Emma) that they almost unveiled the calculating nerve of a director who knew the film would need a little extra kick to be more than a lesbian romance, as if the romance wasn't enough. His sex scenes venture so much in the realm of pornography it's hard not to imagine someone licking his upper lip behind the camera. I'm not even accusing Kechiche, his actresses did, denouncing a climate of pressure that confined to harassment. Kechiche became the villain, to the point he wished the film wasn't released. And today's context of harassment' accusations spreading all over Hollywood gives a whole new perspective.It's only fair to use the context. The film was released after the legalization in France of same-sex marriage and the Golden Palm Award played like an official stance. During the promotional days, the two lead actresses were asked to comment on some statement from Christine Boutin, a French politician notoriously opposed to gay marriage, their answers can be found of Youtube, it was one of the reasons I didn't watch the film. Adjani would have spoken, these girls spontaneously raised their middle finger and it didn't really encourage me to watch the film. Still, the middle finger was a honest representation of Hollywood liberals' answer to "conservative bigots". But can't also this film serve as an illustration of actresses' needless over-sexualization, especially coming from a straight director?If you're telling me that there were 800 hours of footage, I wonder what the proportion of the sexual material was. Many questions are to be raised on that matter, would have Kechiche been as artistically zealous about men? I can't speak for him, but being a straight male, I would have probably skipped any love scenes with my remote control, I felt guilty I was actually aroused by the sex scenes. The film is in fact good, and sex is integral to its quality, but there's "sex scene" and "sex scene", and less would have been more. In the end of the first intercourse, there's a brief moment where the two young girls lie in bed in a position that reminded of a beautiful moment in "Five Easy Pieces", it allowed Adele to be staring at Emma's body and there was something fascinating in the way she looked at her sex and how she gently caressed her leg, like an intimate realization, that moment alone spoke more than any licking or humping.And just when you thought the movie would dig deeper into their relationships, it returned to sex, over and over again... while there was so much more to appreciate, Kechiche's insistence on sex stole the thunder of one of the most powerful and realistic romances of recent times. I felt really empathetic toward the insecurities of Adele and the way she eluded any attempt to admit she had more than a fling on Emma, the character of Emma and how she never took crap in the name of love, the differences between the two girls and how it affected their social and professional life, one as a teacher, one as a wannabe artist, how it affected their relationships with friends and family.In fact, the realism of the film is so striking that it's only when you realize there's nothing 'special' about it that you find out this is what makes it exceptional, but its own enemy was Kechiche who deliberately wanted to make something exceptionally graphic as if he didn't trust his material enough. And that's a shame because the film didn't need that; it is overly long while it could have better had it trimmed at least fifteen minutes of erotica.There's that Howard Hawks' quote I often mention in my reviews: a good film is three great scenes and no bad scenes, there are three magnificent scenes in the film, one where Adele is verbally harassed by a group of friends, pushed to admit that she's lesbian, implicating a response of hostility forcing her to deny it as a defense mechanism, Adele is a nice person who finds herself entrapped in her desire to a keep a low profile and her personal impulses.There's the beautiful park scene where there's no body language is enough to show the growing love between the two women, and finally, there's the argument near the end and it felt so real that for one moment I didn't know whom to root for, it was time for Adele to grow up and stop relying of victimization and defensiveness. The film is never as good a romance as it's a wonderful coming of age story and character studies, especially the titular Adele.Now, there's no bad scene but so overly long sexual scenes that they confine to voyeurism and can affect the film in a negative way. A film about heterosexual people wouldn't have needed so much sex, this one should have subdued it. "Milk" and "Carol" suggested the intimacy and weren't less powerful. And the problem with "Blue" is that sex occupies so much space it contaminates every review and distract from the beautiful relationship it deals with and makes the critics look like homophobic bigots while the overuse of sex was also criticized by gay people. The film was just, needlessly polarizing.

There's a lot to like about 'Blue is the Warmest Colour', a lengthy drama about an ultimately failed (lesbian) relationship, for a start, lots of beautiful young Frenchwomen, smoking cigarettes and looking cool. More seriously, the film really practices "show not tell", allowing us to get a real feel for its characters' lives and the subtlety of the dynamic of their interaction. Oddly, this is not (to me) a "gay" movie, in that it's a film about two people who find each other attractive, and to inexperienced Adele, it's a very particular wonder, which I liked - not everyone feels that "gay" or "straight" is a category by which they care to be identified, that you necessarily have something in common with those whose sexual orientation you share. Likewise, the relationship ends for very particular reasons, due to differences in need and social class (in this case, between the middle middle class and a certain affluent pseudo-Bohemia). Finally, the sex scenes are beautifully lit and acted.But - it is a lengthy drama. The repeated scenes where we see Adele teaching tell us about the passage of time, and her current state of ambition and mind - but sometimes the viewer is left wondering if the director couldn't have found a trick, to convey this information in a more compact way. The sex scenes aren't just porn - they offer great insight into the characters - but again they're very long. And perhaps my sympathy for this indulgence of the protagonists was lessened by the fact that they seem to both have plenty of advantages - in good looks, in family background, in a talent for what they do. We see how Adele is shattered by the break-up; but it's hard to believe she won't get over it. Ultimately, however, these are quibbles compared with what the film does well. Set aside sufficient time, and you'll enjoy it.

Its basically a lesbian porno film. Lets be honest here. There was no need for an explicit 5 minute lesbian sex scene. I felt that stole away from the actual story. Parents do NOT watch this film with your kids. Granted it is NC17, so I doubt any parents would. But still. Not surprising to me that this won allot of awards just like Moonlight. If your gay, and you push the envelope you can win awards.