A teenager discovers lesbianism with a fine arts student older than her. Winner of the Golden Palm in Cannes.

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Adèle leads her secondary school life the way her adolescent state dictates. After a French lit course about love in Marivaux’s novels, a discussion about sex breaks out in the cafeteria. Obsessed by who will sleep with her, Adèle and her friends try out new emotions and gossip about them like everything else. Tired of pretending with her new boyfriend, Adèle goes in search of a mysterious young woman with blue highlights whom she saw by chance on the street. She finds her in a gay bar. Emma, a fine arts student, is a bit older and, especially, more sure of her own sexuality. Her initiation into lesbianism turns Adèle’s life upside down, as she is confronted with her own fears as well as the looks of those around them...

Abdellatif Kechiche’s heroines have been reading Marivaux since l'Esquive, but here they rub up against other pleasures as well. A quest for sexual identity that stretches out over a laborious three hours, which you may have liked to spend dreaming of things other than women’s bodies filmed so closely it’s like you’re in bed with them too. An intimacy that may seduce some, but would profit from a bit more subtlety and a dash of modesty. Although the length of the movie allows a few gems to be unearthed in its protracted scenes, it also provides a few moments of boredom.