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The Story of Adele HRating:
Release Date: 23 January, 2001 Retail Price: $14.95 OUR Price: $12.99 You SAVE: $1.96! Cast: Complete Cast (6 total) |
The Story of Adele H Reviews
Not only is "unrequited love a bore," it can drive one to madness
Based on the true story about the obsessive love of Adele Hugo (daughter of Victor Hugo and played beautifully by Isabelle Adjani) for a French soldier (Albert Pinson, played by Bruce Robinson). Adele and Pinson were once lovers and even contemplated marriage, but her family would not consent at first so Pinson leaves - and eventually falls out of love. He joins the army and goes to Halifax, but Adele follows him.
She tries everything to get him to love her again - in vain. She keeps a journal in which she fabricates a life for herself filled with success, where in reality there's only been failure. She slowly slips into madness. When Pinson is shipped to Barbados she even follows him there, living a beggars life in rags; she's totally insane now: she sees Pinson on the street one day and doesn't even recognize him anymore.
Truffaut's brilliance here is not just in the way he develops and explores the passions that motivate and come to obsess Adele, which is moving and intelligent, but also in the way he's able to never allow our sympathies to desert her even though her obsession becomes totally irrational. Adjani is radiant at times as her face reveals the pain of her broken heart. Another gem from Truffaut.
Fatal Attraction-19th Century Style
I enjoyed this film primarily as a fan of the beautiful Adjani. Even though her performance is restrained and quite convincing, the film is still not emotionally involving somehow. It is not boring, though, as her descent into madness keeps you reluctantly enthralled. It is a very dark and cold film with muted colors and many scenes of Adele in her candle-lit room writing letters, but this is all very fitting for the era and locale. My problem connecting emotionally may have something to do with the character that is the object of her affections. I mean, really, how can that man resist this woman?
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