The Story of Adèle E | Little White Lies

In Praise Of

The Sto­ry of Adèle E

23 Mar 2023

Words by David Jenkins

Three individuals wearing colourful clothing against a blue background.
Three individuals wearing colourful clothing against a blue background.
In praise of French actor Adèle Exar­chopou­los who brings her sul­try sen­si­bil­i­ty to a range of roles, most recent­ly Léa Mysius’ The Five Devils.

No-one knew what plan­et she was flung in from when they first clapped eyes on Adèle Exar­chopou­los. For me, like a lot of crit­ics I imag­ine, it was the 2013 Cannes press screen­ing of Blue is the Warmest Colour, for which the actor went on to share the Palme d’Or with the film’s direc­tor and her co-star, Léa Sey­doux. Which was an unprece­dent­ed move at the time, but one for which com­men­ta­tors did not bat an eye­lid, because it was so obvi­ous­ly deserved.

By that I mean this was a film in which the ded­i­ca­tion and inten­si­ty of the per­for­mances were so inte­gral to its suc­cess that it would seem strange to direct the plau­dits else­where, or to just a sin­gle point of that cen­tral cre­ative tri­an­gle. And that year’s jury head Steven Spiel­berg was clear­ly aware of the fine alchem­i­cal bal­ance the film achieves. 

Blue is the Warmest Colour might be remem­bered for its lengthy and graph­ic sex scenes, but in fact the abid­ing image that comes back to us over and over again is that of Exar­chopou­los slurp­ing up over-cooked spaghet­ti drenched in mari­nara sauce. An icon­ic scene that only works because of the blithe way she eroti­cis­es what should be a com­plete­ly banal action. 

Fast-for­ward to present day and Exar­chopou­los is back doing what she does best: immers­ing her­self in a role which, on paper, would seem fair­ly straight­for­ward, but enhanc­ing it through her ded­i­ca­tion to the small tics and glances and expres­sions she pulls between moments. In Léa Mysius’ The Five Dev­ils, she plays a lov­ing if con­fused moth­er, an emo­tion­al­ly absent wife, a ded­i­cat­ed swim­mer and div­er, and a yearn­ing and excit­ed lover – some­times all of the above simultaneously.

Individuals in golden sequinned costumes against fiery backdrop.

It’s hard to pin­point what it is about Exar­chopou­los that makes her so unique as a per­former, but it’s per­haps a nat­ur­al sen­si­bil­i­ty she brings to per­for­mance: she exudes a lev­el of con­fi­dence that means she’s rarely a com­plete­ly pitiable pres­ence in a film, even when her char­ac­ter is being passed through the emo­tion­al mill. There’s clear­ly some­thing very wrong going on in the back­ground of The Five Dev­ils, as her errant daugh­ter goes off and makes potions and her husband’s estranged sis­ter returns to their life, but she’s able to trans­mit a sense of ambi­ent control.

One of the mark­ers for this sen­si­bil­i­ty may be her voice, which is almost bari­tone in its bass-heavy tim­bre. It is rich and vel­vety and hugs the words as they emanate from her lips. In Emmanuel Marre and Julie Lecoustre’s 2021 scathing work­place satire Zero Fucks Giv­en, she plays a flight atten­dant on a bud­get air­line who is sim­ply going through the pro­fes­sion­al motions so she can enjoy the ran­dom nights and evenings in far-flung locales. 

Even when speak­ing in Eng­lish, she man­ages to bring a don’t‑mess-with-me edge to her var­i­ous alter­ca­tions with pas­sen­gers. In one scene, a young woman attempts to bring a bag over the size lim­it into the cab­in, and Exar­chopou­los gives her no quar­ter in say­ing that she’ll have to pay extra to bring it on board. It’s a har­row­ing, if strange­ly recog­nis­able sequence in which we see that the dehu­man­is­ing prac­tices of the air­line are start­ing to rub off on her and roll back her nat­ur­al deposits of empathy.

Her upcom­ing role in Ira Sachs’ Berlin-set three-way romance, Pas­sages, is some­thing a lit­tle dif­fer­ent for Exar­chopou­los in that her char­ac­ter has to suf­fer the humil­i­a­tions brought on by the impul­sive Tomas (Franz Rogows­ki) who romances her char­ac­ter despite, until very recent­ly, being part­nered up with print­mak­er Mar­tin (Ben Whishaw).

There’s some­thing quite cold and prac­ti­cal about the way she enters into this lop­sided rela­tion­ship. She’s hope­ful that Tomas may be sin­cere in his pro­fessed love, but there’s a mater­nal aspect to her – which comes through in scenes of her day job as a school teacher – which sug­gest that, secret­ly, she knows he’s an impetu­ous and ill-behaved lit­tle boy.

As she does in The Five Dev­ils, Zero Fucks Giv­en, Pas­sages and more, she con­tin­ues to sub­tly ele­vate char­ac­ters who would oth­er­wise sink or swim in terms of how they’re pro­ject­ed towards the cam­era. The range she goes through in The Five Dev­ils is aston­ish­ing, par­tic­u­lar­ly as the sto­ry does have an oth­er­world­ly bent to it. And in Zero Fucks Giv­en, there’s a employ­ee train­ing seg­ment where she has to demon­strate her best on-the-job smile, and it’s com­plete­ly haunting.

The Five Dev­ils is released in UK and Irish cin­e­mas this Fri­day, and streams exclu­sive­ly on MUBI from May 12. Zero Fucks Giv­en is now stream­ing on MUBI. Pas­sages will be released in cin­e­mas and on MUBI this year.

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

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