Betty Blue Reviews

Jean-Jacques Beineix's attempt to combine the energetic high-gloss finish of his debut feature, DIVA, with the raw poetic intensity of MOON IN THE GUTTER, ends up as an inconsistent and unsatisfying tale of amour fou and literary ambition. Dalle embarks on a personal crusade to get her lover's (Anglade) novel published, but has a pretty hard time dealing with rejection notices. Eventually she starts hearing voices, and is finally driven to poke out her own eye. Anglade, best known in the US as the "roller" in SUBWAY, is perfectly cast here, although the best thing about the film is the pouty, 21-year-old Dalle. While not a box-office smash in the US, BETTY BLUE did garner an Oscar nomination as Best Foreign Language Film. In 1991 Beineix released his original director's cut, at an expanded running time of 182 minutes, in France.