I saw this film as a preview, at 11am on a Sunday morning, whilst nursing a horrible cold and it was the best decision I have made in a long time. The film offers several basic and well used premises: the Eliza Doolittle/Henry Higgins: why won't you let me educate you thing, a dichotomy between big city and small city ideas and ideals and the well trotted out first love idea. However, the way this film is presented is entirely original. Kechiche sets it in Lille, a town in Northern France, full of provincial living and entirely captures how it is in general in this town - when the characters walk around you feel that he understands what he is talking about. The film is about desire, desire to eat, desire to sleep with someone, desire to dance and it is portrayed within a first relationship between two women. The two women are fantastic and the plot has amusing little french jokes interspersed between the very emotionally demanding relationship that has you gasping at points. However the story is largely about one of them, Adele - and you feel over the three hours, that you get to know her, what she is about, what she finds attractive, what she wants (or what she thinks she wants). The actress playing her has a wonderfully expressive face and she needs it for the amount that happens. When she cries, when she eats, when she sleeps you believe her. Much has been said about the sex scenes, which are very graphic, however these are entirely relevant to the plot and the furore seems to be about the actors criticising the director for pushing them too far, however, without this pushing this film wouldn't be nearly as good. When it finished, and I realised that it had been three hours I couldn't believe it. It was a revelation.

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