rohit m
This movie is big let down for me , there was no acting at all by the actress all she was doing in this whole movie was showing off how much pretty face she has , she manipulated people very well , no emotions at all just showing of how much pretty eyes she has .
worst acting by isabelle adjani director should have focused on her acting plot was good accept actress ...
Rated 1/5 Stars •
Rated 1 out of 5 stars
07/12/23
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Audience Member
I saw this at its US debut at Lincoln Center. Adjani was new and took me and the audience into a soul full of passion. Brilliant. How she lived the suffering
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
02/14/23
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steve d
Powerful and really well acted.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
03/30/23
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Audience Member
Great film but sad. I wish they had explained at the start that she was mad.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
02/24/23
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Audience Member
Isabelle Adjani's beauty and madness is all that elevates this from being a mediocre costume drama. The story is not that interesting.
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
01/30/23
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Audience Member
There are, in no doubt, hundreds of burgeoning directors who could have made 1975's "The Story of Adèle H." with a little more flair than French auteur François Truffaut (who goes for clinically aloof rather than supply lush), but there is not, in no doubt, an actress besides the then twenty years old Isabelle Adjani who could have embodied the title role so without flaw. When Truffaut goes for nonchalant naturalism, Adjani goes for dangerously passionate, and the symbiotically intoxicating artistic partnership thus makes for thoroughly arresting cinema.
Biographical pictures are not so usually virtuoso in delivery - conventionality over personal style is to be anticipated - but "The Story of Adèle H." is haunting to the point of being nightmarish. Detached from reality and vehement in its depiction of erotic obsession, it keeps us away from empathy and instead indulges our cinematic tendency to voyeuristically gaze.
How could one look away, anyhow, from the plight of our tragic heroine, Adèle Hugo? The daughter of revolutionary French writer Victor Hugo ("Les Misérables"), Adèle, in her youth, was briefly romanced by the British Lieutenant Albert Pinson (brought to life in the film by Bruce Robinson), who ultimately proposed marriage but, like many lusty soldiers of the time, didn't really mean the proposition and wants to move on.
But the fleetingly amorous relationship had a destructive impact on Adèle's mind, which, with the aid of a now better understanding of psychology, is understood to have been affected by both schizophrenia and erotomania. The film follows her for a year (1863-64) as her mental state deteriorates, introducing her as a fragile beauty undermined by her subtle madness and leaving her after she's lost her sanity completely. The decay found in the middle is marvelously portrayed by Adjani, who was nominated for an Oscar for her work.
Following her long bout of derangement was Adèle eventually placed in an insane asylum, where she quietly lived for forty years until her death in 1915 at the age of eight-five. But that section of her life is wisely summarized within the credits - most compelling about Adèle Hugo's existence, I think, were those seminal years that saw her almost compulsively living in her delusions, traveling anywhere Pinson landed and putting on various façades in besetting attempts to win her would-be lover over. The young woman was kept loose for far too long - a person in her state of mind is more than just a little bit of a danger to themselves - but watching her do anything (at one point, she even visits a hypnotist) to wrangle Pinson back into her life is as sad as it is heartbreakingly humorous.
Obviously, Adèle never had a moment in her long life not hindered by her dementia, but viewing her psychological crumbling is tragically tantalizing. Sometimes Truffaut's writing and direction flirts with ubiquity, but Adjani, so impassioned, is enthralling. Behind Adèle's porcelain allure and waif-like body language hides a torrent of aberration, and Adjani, among the most gifted actresses of her generation, finds the nuances within Adèle's mental decomposition with terrifyingly realistic fury. The role catapulted Adjani to stardom, and, forty-one years after its release, rests as one of the most defining moments of her lauded career. Beholding the performance in all its stormy glory, her witchery as an actress has perhaps gotten better with age.
And "The Story of Adele H." has ripened with time, too: an iconic moment in French cinema of the 1970s and a high point in Truffaut's thrill seeking filmography, it's a biographical picture that overcomes its limitations as a simple retelling. Adèle Hugo might have been destroyed by her mind, but her collapse makes for exceptional fascination for the silver screen.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
02/03/23
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