Ole Cheatin' Emma

First off, I have to say this movie was incredibly sad - so much so that I even shed a few tears towards the end. I think both actresses did a fantastic job in this film. Second, I watched this film twice with a bit of time passing between both viewings. The first time I saw this as is without subtitles, pondered it without having any knowledge of the French language whatsoever, then again with English subtitles. Although during the first viewing I had no clue what was being said specifically, I was able to grasp the general feeling of what was happening while also being able to focuses on the actors faces and their settings capturing the details of their expressions and emotions - something that can't fully be done while reading subtitles (at least not for me). The second viewing allowed me to completely comprehend all dialogue between the actors and then being able to put that together with what I perceived in the first viewing. After all of that I can say that I thoroughly enjoyed this movie and did not even notice how long it was. Naturally, I found myself coming to the boards here to see what other commentors were saying about this film. I see alot of dispute as to whether or not Emma actually cheated on Adele and my two cents is that she did, and here's why:

In the scene where they meet in the lesbian bar, Emma is flirting with Adele - using her eyes, her body language, her tone of voice even. Focusing on the body language, the way she leans into Adele's ear to speak to her as if the music is too loud, which it probably is, but still in a flirtatious manner nonetheless, especially considering that Emma is with Sabine. Fast forward to the scene where Adele has the party for Emma and we're introduced to Lise, Emma uses the same flirtatious body language towards Lise that she did in the bar scene when she met Adele - even the leaning in to speak into Lise's ear. I found it rather disrespectful of Emma to behave that way in front of her girlfriend but that's realistic, I have seen that type of behavior plenty of times. And, it's not like Emma hasn't displayed that type of behavior before while being in a relationship, as just mentioned when she met Adele.

Later that night Adele tries to have sex with Emma and Emma seems completely uninterested, saying she has her period, which may or may not be true, but I think her body language speaks more volume than her spoken words.

Then we see Adele listening to Emma's voice message that she is working late with Lise, which here I gathered the director is giving the viewers the feeling that this is not the first time she's done this though this is the first time it's being shown, and that Adele can call her if she wants. This was a clue for me. After she was just at the party all up under Lise she now starts spending extra time with Lise, "working late" together. It does not matter that Emma said Adele can call her, she can be in the throws of passion and stop to answer her phone or choose to not answer at all and make an excuse for it later. Just because someone says call them doesn't mean they will be available at that point and time to take the call. I'm thinking she only said that as a way to ease Adele's mind, kinda like reverse psychology - "if I tell her to call me, she won't actually call and she won't think anything weird because there's no way i'd actually be cheating and tell her to call me". Something along those lines.

From the point of the party Adele threw for Emma up to this point we notice Emma becoming more and more distant from Adele and Adele appearing to become increasingly lonely, leading her to cheat and Emma breaking up with Adele. Here's where it gets interesting for me - Emma ends up in a relationship with Lise after breaking up with Adele, which is exactly what she did WITH Adele when she broke up with Sabine. So, while Emma was with Sabine, she meets Adele, flirts with Adele, they even share a kiss (totally inapproriate for someone in a relationship), then I believe shortly thereafter she breaks up with Sabine and ends up with Adele, the same person she had been flirting with all along while she was with Sabine. Now Emma's at it again, this time Adele is in Sabine's shoes and Lise is the new Adele.

Regardless of the means of the break-up, I do think it was inevitable that the relationship would only last for a spell as they were both young when they first met. Young, wide-eyed and full of passion. That usually changes over time, especially when you have such factors as age and maturity coming into play. I think as Emma, who was already older than Adele, matured and was starting to come into her full potential careerwise, socially, etc. she grew tired of Adele and her eyes started to wander towards someone that she had more in common with. This on top of the fact that it already seemed to be a part of her personality to cheat/flirt while in a relationship, it was inevitable that they would break up. One can argue as to whether or not her and Lise actually had sex while she was with Adele, which would constitute full blown cheating, to which I'd argue that just because it wasn't shown doesn't mean it didn't happen. I think the director intentionally teases us by not showing it and leaving us to guess as to whether or not they did, but he did provide the previous clues to show that Emma cheated with Lise. I also think he clued us in to Emma's cheatin' ways by showing us not once, but twice, Emma's completely inappropriate behavior while she's in relationships. I don't care what anyone says, it is completely inappropriate to share a kiss with someone if you are in a relationship as well as flirt and display the behaviors that Emma did while in relationships. For some, kissing is cheating. Personally, I think that's circumstantial depending on the meaning and feelings behind the kiss. In Emma's case I call it cheating because there were indeed feelings there when she kissed Adele. For me, the dead give away is that she happens to end up in relationships with these same people she's flirting with. That speaks volumes, there must've been some sexual attraction to the person at the time of "friendship" if she ends up with them later on. It's all highly inappropriate and leads me to believe that Emma did in fact cheat on Adele.