The Story of Adele H

It's deeply, disarmingly funny -- which Truffaut has never been before. This picture is so totally concentrated on one character that its a phenomenon.

... a remarkable love story...

The film is a disaster because, in place of the self-conscious reflection of her predicament conveyed by Adèle's journal (on which the film is based), Truffaut opts for the Hollywood formula of hapless unrequited love.

Truffaut has taken this factual material and made it into a strange, moody film that belongs very much with the darker side of his work.

Looks and sounds like no other Truffaut film you've ever seen.

Its intensity is impressive and remains uncompromised by the prettifying aesthetic touches Truffaut adds here and there in an apparent attempt to distance himself from the overcharged material.

When Truffaut tries to sympathize, he isn't very good. Here, he doesn't really try. He says nothing more than 'madness is very strange, is it not?' It is. That's why The Story of Adele H. is one of his best films.

...well-upholstered, thoughtfully told…Adele H is a striking, sympathetic heroine who rails against ‘the swindle of identity’&#59; her narrative has a resonance at a time when women are told to shut up and let men make their decisions for them, like it or not

The film moves with a special grace and beauty that only Truffaut can achieve. But the story is told too well... Romantic as I am, The Story of Adele H. was too much for me to take.

It's Adjani who sells this story. We see her interior, and how her desires and behaviors are entirely rational to her.