Betty Blue

Betty Blue, in either of its forms – whether it be the 121-minute theatrical version or the 185-minute director’s cut – takes a bad situation and makes it true-blue and beautiful. Read full review

If Betty Blue plays into the salacious archetype of the “liberated” foreign film, at least it repays you with real feelings of earthiness. Read full review

Beineix is still the sumptuous stylist; it's as much a part of him as his skin and the film has its share of gorgeous dawns, haunting sunsets, rollicking pink-and blue-painted beach houses. But he is also a great storyteller, and the whole middle section of Betty Blue is an irresistible tale of crazy love on one hand and crazy friendship on the other. [07 Nov 1986, p.1]

If only Beineix could have imagined an existence for his star-crossed protagonists beyond the source material (the question of whether successful maternity would have sobered Betty yelps for an impossible sequel), he may have managed a sultry masterpiece. Read full review

Like Zorg, we are bedazzled by Betty's bright eyes, big moue and wild child's ways. Read full review

Director Jean-Jacques Beineix has adapted a novel by Philippe Djian, considered an enfant terrible of the new literary generation. It's another feverish tale of amour fou. Read full review

An extraordinarily sensual movie with its own silly integrity. Read full review

An inconsistent and unsatisfying tale of amour fou and literary ambition. Read full review

More style than substance... but such sexy, sexy style... Read full review

Beineix's determination to tell the full story results in a bum-numbing and often downright dull three hours. Read full review

Indeed, the film flies by and feels weightless, like a spectacular rainbow-colored hydrogen balloon that passes out of our memory the moment we lose sight of it. Read full review

Glamorously tragic, Betty Blue is sensually shot and persuasively performed, but a solitary thought dropped into boy genius Beineix's colorfully bedecked wishing well of a movie would echo emptily into eternity. [12 Sep 1986, p.D1]

Perhaps what is least satisfying about Beineix' effort is its implied theme—that women are mere muses to be addled, suffocated, and sacrificed to revitalize the imaginations of men. Read full review

Too often, Betty Blue has the posturing good looks of a fashion spread and nothing more. Read full review

Betty Blue is a movie about Beatrice Dalle's boobs and behind, and everything else is just what happens in between the scenes where she displays them. Read full review