The_Film_Cricket Adjani plays Adele Hugo, the second daughter of author Victor Hugo. Devastated by the loss of her sister, the movie finds her living with her father in exile on the isle of Guernsey where she falls in love with one Lieutenant Pinson, a British Naval Officer who seduced her and whom her father has selected as a husband. She goes to Halifax to rekindle a romance with him only to find that Pinson wants nothing to do with her (marriage would mean he can't whore around) and makes it clear that there will never be any chance of a life together. We've sensed from the very beginning that Adele is a little mad and that knowledge gives weight to what she does for the rest of the film.She is undeterred by his brush-off and begins writing bogus letters back home the she and Pinson are in the throws of a love affair and later she writes of their marriage. Meanwhile she keeps pursuing him, peeping at him while he is having sex, she arranges prostitutes, slips letters into his pockets and sends him money. He is unmoved but she is remains determined even at one point stuffing a pillow under her dress and telling Pinson's father that she is pregnant with his child.She becomes further and further detached from her own sanity until her pride, her dignity and her consciousness of the surrounding world are virtually gone. Terribly ill she sleeps in flophouses but never gives up on Pinson even though it is clear that he is a rat and isn't worth her time. Adjani is the right actress for this material because her breathtaking beauty leaves us thinking that this is a woman who could level any man with her eyes and yet her madness leaves her to pursue a man who wouldn't know a good woman if she fell on him. To look at Adele is to understand the commonality of all of Truffaut's characters who are not led by plot but are urged on by their personalities, their obsessions and their emotions. He loves long close-ups of her beautiful face and there is a sense of her tunnel vision.What we see in that beautiful face is that there is a battle going on inside. There are two sides of Adele, one in reality and one in her writing that are battling for control over her mind. In her writings, the world is a happy, joyous place and as she descends ever further into her madness it consumes her soul. This makes her sound like just a stubborn girl who clings to an uninterested lover, but the screenplay is much smarter than that. Adele is unstable from the beginning (though it is not very apparent) and Pinson rejection fuels her madness and consumes her for the rest of her life.Truffaut isn't interested in pushing Adele into a simple-minded role as a sympathetic waif, his characters were always more complex than that. Adele isn't molded to our affections but we pay witness to an irrational woman trapped between an unloving father and an unloving man whom her madness won't leave behind. The collaboration of Truffaut and Adjani was brilliant, they present the portrait of soul trapped by obsession but refuse to give her any ray of sunshine. The closest thing is in the end in which she wanders the streets wearing rags in a catatonic state and she doesn't recognize Pinson when she passes him on the street. Maybe, for her, this is best.

ElMaruecan82 "The Story of Adele H." is true. François Truffaut, probably afraid of what would be a reaction of disbelief from the audience, insists about it right before the movie starts. Later, to those who wouldn't know, the name for which the H stood for is revealed, Adele H. is the daughter of the great poet and writer, Victor Hugo. And considering the author's prestige in France, any attempt of fictionalization for pure cinematic purposes, wouldn't have served the film. In other words, to tell such a harrowing story, it 'd better be true.And 'harrowing' is an understatement, the film features the daughter of the iconic author in the town of Hallifax, Canada, looking for the Lieutenant Pinson. Pinson declared his love to her during a mission in Guernesey, the town that welcomed Hugo in exile during the reign of Napoleon III. But what Adele ignored is that the handsome Pinson, was a seducer and she was the love of his life as long as he lived in Guernesey. But you can't conquer the heart of the most romantic French author's daughter without consequences. The story of Adele H. Is the disturbing, but true, chronicles of these consequences : disguised as stalking, simply one of the most romantically driven descents into madness that ever graced the screen.Still, for a period film that could have inspired a more epic direction, the atmosphere strikes by its simplicity. All in dark, brown or gray, no music or pieces of action, and everything contributes to quite an austere mood. If I wanted to be more critical, I would have compared the film to some TV movies that try to overcome their limited budgets, I could even mention some savorless acting based on a monotonic tone or one-dimensional characterization, but I guess, this doesn't really matter, and for two essential reasons. First, the movie is short enough to let the script go straightforward to its point, while it could have lasted two hours and half, if it dared to imitate the work of Bergman … to probably fail. On that level, the film is short, but efficient. The second, and not the least one, is the extraordinary performance of the precociously talented, Isabelle Adjani, proving again, that she's the most gifted and talented actress of her generation, and maybe more.The movie's quality and merit rely in their entirety on Adjani's hypnotic performance, rightfully nominated for the Best Actress Oscar. Adjani, as Adele H, perfectly conveys the alienation of a mind affected by such a desperate love that it undermines any rational consideration of her actions' incidences. She gave her heart, and the hell she will take it back. An impartial script intelligently handles the treatment of her personality during the first part, allowing us to adopt a very critical attitude toward Adele. She's a stalker; she's a mythomaniac and displays a very despicable selfish attitude when it comes to the name her actions inevitably tarnish. But while the script is impartial, the direction cleverly creates this intimacy between Adele and the viewer, so there's no need to care for the peripheral characters and so we can sympathize or at least understand the reasons of this torment and the apparently malicious motives it inspires, it's a remarkable merit on the field of intelligence. "The Story of Adele H." is an engaging character study of envy and jealousy, which hesitates between two diagnoses: is it a pathological or a romantic case, or both? I think the answer relies on the presence of the third most important character, present through his undeniable aura, Victor Hugo. Hugo was one the most influential romantic French authors, and I think the common mistake is to associate romanticism with sentimentalism, while they are two philosophically separate things. Romantic describes this incapacity to be understood, this burning passion devouring the heart and while the others can only see what belongs to the real, the romantic poet sees through the future, like a guiding light, or feels it like a sixth sense. As opposite to realism, romanticism evokes the figure of the eternal adolescent with a poignant virginity that deprives him from the pervert effect of cynicism and dishonesty, and that strength and vigor governing his idealistic actions. Adele is overly romantic to the state of alienation, and in a way she's more a victim of Pinson than the opposite, and witnessing Pinson's cold reactions, we end up rooting for Adele on the longer term, and this is not the film's merit, this is its triumph.Adele inherited her father's ideals, both haunted by the memory of Leopoldine, Adele's sister, who died from a drowning accident at the tragic age of nineteen right after her marriage. This episode is essential because it consolidated Adele's view on love, passion, duty, devotion and sacrifice like when Leopoldine's husband not tolerating to lose the love of his life, let himself drown to death with her: this was the meaning of love for Adele, for her father, who'd be forever devastated by this tragedy, so great, so dramatic, that even Pinson is too small to be ever associated with these passionate persons. And it's not surprising that Adele's mental state finally exceeded the limits of her stressful quest before she finally came back to France, to quietly die at 85, a silent and unnoticed death under the thundering canons of WWI.And speaking of war, as I said in other reviews, maybe if the greatest war movies were about wars that were lost, maybe this applies to love stories too? Or can we really lose a love? Adele H. embodies the strong determination of a woman, capable to cross the sea in the name of love, and such a powerful and pure heart is just too mighty for Pinson or for anyone. And it's still better to lose the love of your life than your capability to love ...

Michael_Elliott Story of Adele H, The (1975)*** (out of 4) Isabelle Adjani picked up an Academy Award nomination for her performance of Victor Hugo's second daughter Adele who follows Lt. Pinson (Bruce Robinson) to Halifax where her obsession with him quickly turns to madness. We follow Adele as she first arrives in Halifax and tries to get the man to marry her but when he refuses we see her continue various attempts in getting what she wants but each time these attempts just become more outlandish. THE STORY OF ADELE H appears to get fairly mixed reviews. Some call it a masterpiece and one of the director's best works while others call it cold and forgettable. I guess I'm in the middle because I thought the film was terrific to look at and we also get a great performance by Adjani but in the end it was just impossible for me to connect with this character or care a bit about her. There's no denying that this is an incredible film to look at as director Truffaut does a marvelous job in capturing the mood and look of the 1860s. No matter what was happening on the screen I simply couldn't take my eyes off the costumes, sets and even the buildings. There's one very quick sequence where Adele is walking through a snowstorm and passes out. Even the look of the snow was rather hypnotizing to and beautifully shot. Truffaut takes his time telling the story and this actually builds up a pretty good atmosphere and the way he reveals the woman's obsession and how he shows it turning into this craziness is picked up very well with the slower pace. Adjani certainly deserves all the praise because she's simply divine no matter what personality she's playing. There's a scene early in the movie where she's staying at a house and the soldier comes to visit her. The way Adjani goes from normal to mad in the matter of seconds was extremely believable and there wasn't a false move by her anywhere in the film. The supporting players fit their parts well, although no one really stands out. The one flaw I had with the film was the fact that I never really connected to Adele nor did I ever really begin to feel for her. The only thing that kept me connected to her was knowing she was the daughter of Victor Hugo who of course is a legend. If this had been anyone else in the world then it's doubtful I would have connected to her for anything. The film is still worth viewing if you're a fan of the director but in terms of his career I'd say this isn't nearly his best work.

jcappy Guilt or Passion? 8 Is guilt or passion the driving force behind Adele's obsession for Lt Pinson? I think the former. Maybe it's her re-current dreams of her older sister's tragic death by drowning, maybe it's her conscious guilt over that accident--she wished it because this sister was her father's dear favorite---but for me it's her ENIGMATIC SMILE while viewing her beloved's sexual encounter and her subsequent gift of a prostitute which argue even more deeply for guilt.For how can deep passion cut itself off from the body without abstracting itself? If her love was real, concrete, it was embodied. At that SMILE'S precise moment, passion/love must become guilt/penitence. Or, if this love started with guilt/penitence and Pinson is simply a stand-in for her dead sister, than all that can be left now is suffering. Because it is now brutally clear that the love she seeks--to heal her guilt--has been denied. The physical bond is severed. Pinson has stripped Adele of her body--and thus of her key to response. Now guilt has killed passion and has shut down possibility. Only suffering remains, and Adele's downward spiral into self-destruction has begun. Pinson's cold indifference, selfishness, and womanizing are now mere penance, which she can only passively endure. She may survive--and does, but not as a lover, saint or mystic.