372 le Matin (Betty Blue) (37.2 Degrees in the Morning) (1986)

Critic Reviews

• Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune

  A playful, meandering, somewhat confusing tale that hangs together as a portrait of demented love.

• Melissa Anderson, Village Voice

  Curvy, ripe Dalle, only 21 at the time and in her first screen role, completely commits to the part.

• David Edelstein, New York Magazine

  The movie was colorful and swirling and oppressive all at once, and in 1991, Beineix recut it not to slim it down but to add a florid third hour.

• Variety Staff, Variety

  Dalle, a model, makes a moving debut as the desperate baby-doll who fails to mold reality to her own conceptions of happiness. Anglade is more introvertedly affecting as the lucidly casual, but devoted Zorg.

• Janet Maslin, New York Times

  If Betty Blue teaches us anything -- and there's a good chance it doesn't -- it's that life is full of little mysteries.

• Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

  Love is not the same thing as nudity. This may seem obvious, but I feel it ought to be explained to director Jean-Jacques Beineix.

• Chris Cabin, Slant Magazine

  Introducing the world to the galvanic, incomparable Beatrice Dalle constitutes the only noteworthy facet of Betty Blue.

• Fernando F. Croce, CinePassion

  Flows in a lambent pop style, warm to the touch and scarily intimate

• Marty Mapes, Movie Habit

  There can be beauty in tragedy, particularly when the key ingredient is the same in both

• Chris Hewitt (St. Paul), St. Paul Pioneer Press

  Rarely seen in this country in the intervening 23 years, Dalle gives one of the all-time-great performances as Betty.

• Dennis Schwartz, Ozus' World Movie Reviews

  It's a passionate love story executed in a dull fashion.

• Emanuel Levy, EmanuelLevy.Com

  Beinex's Oscar-nominated, quintessentially French amour fou tells of a love relationship that descends into madness, splendidly played by Dalle as the free-spirited troubled femme; one scene of self-inflicted violence is truly tough to watch.

• Avi Offer, NYC Movie Guru

  Occasionally drags and meanders, but it boasts an impressive visual style and a radiant, charismatic performance by the ultra-sexy Béatrice Dalle.

• Joseph Jon Lanthier, Slant Magazine

  Expanded to its intended length, the movie feels not like a failed narrative hastily washed in luridness but a purposefully meandering allegory of artistic frustration.

• Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out New York

  If Betty Blue feasts on the bodies of its leads, it's this director's cut that fully establishes the movie's artistic bona fides.

• , TV Guide's Movie Guide

  The best thing about the film is the pouty, 21-year-old Dalle.

• , Empire Magazine

  If Dalle never made anything of note again -- and she didn't -- then this alone would be enough to stake her claim as an icon of late 20th century cinema.

• , Film4

  Beineix's film is awash with the humour and cool of his debut, Diva, but lacks the cohesion to sustain its weighty ambition.

• Cole Smithey, ColeSmithey.com

  Devastating.

• Christopher Null, Filmcritic.com

  Beineix's villagescapes and countryside vistas are hard to resist, and the dichotomy of a stone cold looney prancing around them only makes the tableau more curiously complete

Read all 20 critic reviews