Betty Blue (1986)

Betty Blue (the original French title is 37°2 le matin), released in 1986, is one of the handful of feature films directed by Jean-Jacques Beineix.

Beineix was one of the directors spoken of at the time as an exponent of Cinéma du look, a movement supposedly emphasising style over substance. Like most movements in cinema the label doesn’t really mean all that much. Luc Besson also attracted this label. In fact while they did make stylish movies (which damned them in the eyes of French critics) there’s a lot more substance in their best movies than you’ll find in the films of the earlier Nouvelle Vague.

Zorg lives in a rundown shack in a strange seaside resort composed entirely of equally rundown shacks. He seems to be a kind of handyman.

He has met the most amazing girl, Betty. She’s nineteen and super-cute and super-hot and seems fun and bubbly and she’s great in bed.

Almost all the plot turns result from dramas manufactured by Betty. In this case it’s a pretty spectacular drama.

Zorg and Betty then decamp to Paris where they share a house with Betty’s friend Lisa, a young widow.

Lisa has a new rich boyfriend, Eddy. He gets Zorg and Betty jobs in his upscale pizza restaurant. It soon becomes clear that there is no-one in the world less suited to a career in hospitality than Betty.

They end up running a piano store previously run by Eddy’s late mother in a small town.

Betty has discovered Zorg’s shameful well-concealed secret. He has written a novel. He has never submitted it for publication. Betty reads it and decides that Zorg is a literary genius. There are two things that make her judgment suspect. Firstly, she loves Zorg so naturally she thinks he’s a genius. And it is desperately important to Betty that Zorg should be a success.

The problem is that Betty is very unstable, she has a hair-trigger temper and when she loses her temper she becomes uncontrollable and her capacity for indulgence in self-pity is colossal. A particularly extravagant self-pity episode is triggered by what is in truth a minor setback. Betty treats minor setbacks like full-scale disasters. Betty’s instability has the potential to destroy her and destroy Zorg. But they are madly in love. Can that love save her? You’ll have to watch the movie to find out.

This movie hits me a bit close to home since I actually had a long-term girlfriend very much like Betty. Just as cute, just as hot, just as unstable, just as crazy. By the 80s such women were being diagnosed as having borderline personality disorder. Whether you buy such psychiatric diagnoses or not such women do exist and Betty certainly fits that mould.

It’s interesting given the movie’s 1986 release date is that any attempt to frame Betty as a feminist heroine is doomed to failure. Betty truly wants just one thing - to be a devoted wife (and she hopes one day to be a devoted mother). She is not a feminist rebel girl and she has zero interest in being a strong, fierce independent woman. For Betty nothing matters except her love for her man.

Betty is a monster, the kind of woman capable of destroying herself and everyone around her. She is a ticking time bomb. Poor Zorg is the kind of guy who meets a psycho chick like Betty and immediately thinks - I can fix her. I can save her. The sensible thing to do is to run away as fast as possible.

But Betty is not a mere monster. For very long stretches she really is sweet and adorable and lots of fun. She is fiercely loyal to Zorg. She has made her choice. He is her man. She would never even consider looking at another man. And while her belief in Zorg’s genius is motivated by her strong belief that she cannot truly love a man unless she can admire him and look up to him that’s not such a bad thing. She really does believe in him, she really will do everything in her power to make him a success, she really will inspire him to believe in himself. There are a lot of things to like about her.

There’s a lot of sex (and it’s reasonably explicit) but their relationship is not based entirely on sex. They have a very healthy very normal sex life. This is a movie that is entirely positive about sex. There’s a lot of nudity, both male and female. Oddly enough it’s the male nudity that is gratuitous!

There are some charming quirky moments and some very romantic moments. This is very much a love story.

Beineix insisted on having Betty played by an unknown and Béatrice Dalle delivers the goods for him.

The director’s cut is very long (a shade over three hours) but the length can be justified since we need to see that for very long stretches of time the relationship is successful and happy and Betty is likeable, cheerful and functional with her psychotic moments gradually having more serious consequences.

Betty Blue is a wonderful movie. Very highly recommended.

I've also reviewed Beineix's Diva (1981).