La Belle Personne
| The Beautiful Person | |
|---|---|
 |
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| La Belle Personne | |
| Directed by | Christophe Honoré |
| Produced by | Sophie Barrat Florence Dormoy Joëy Faré |
| Screenplay by | Christophe Honoré Gilles Taurand |
| Based on |
La Princesse de Clèves by Madame de La Fayette |
| Starring |
Louis Garrel Léa Seydoux Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet |
| Music by | Alex Beaupain |
| Cinematography | Laurent Brunet |
| Edited by | Chantal Hymans |
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Release date
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Running time
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90 minutes |
| Country | France |
| Language | French |
The Beautiful Person (French: La Belle Personne) is a 2008 French film directed by Christophe Honoré. It is a modernized adaptation of the seventeeth-century French novel La Princesse de Clèves.
Honoré was inspired to make the film after then French president Nicolas Sarkozy repeatedly criticized the book as irrelevant in regard to modern life.
After the death of her mother, Junie (Léa Seydoux) transfers to the school that her cousin Mathias (Esteban Carjaval-Alegria) attends. She catches the attention of a lot of people, especially Otto (Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet) and Nemours (Louis Garrel), her Italian teacher. In Italian class, a record of Maria Callas singing Lucia plays, which causes Junie to rush out crying, leaving her affairs behind. Nemours sees a photo of her taken by another student and swipes it. After this, Nemours pursues her even though she has mixed feelings about it. He is so enamored by her that he breaks off his relationships with Florence Perrin, a teacher (Valerie Lang), and Marie, a student (Agathe Bonitzer). Nemours switches seats with Mathias during a field trip. Marie sees a letter left on the seat and it spreads throughout the student body. This letter is a love letter that all of the students think was written by Nemours. Junie, upon reading the letter, becomes very upset, believing that Nemours is in love with somebody else. Mathias goes to Nemours and explains that it was his letter from another boy named Martin and asked him to say that it belonged to the teacher. One of Otto's friends from the Russian language class is asked to spy on her after Junie acts cold to Otto and sees Nemours acting tender to Junie. He mistakes it for kissing and Otto confronts Junie about the misunderstanding. She denies it and goes home. Otto kills himself the next day by jumping from a very high floor at school. After Otto's suicide, Junie skips school for three weeks coming only after Nemours tells Mathias that he will be taking sick leave until the end of the semester. Nemours follows Junie around and she decides to approach him. He asks for some time to talk to her and they are seen running around the city like children. He takes her back to his room where she starts talking about love. He takes her home where they set a date for 5pm the day after next. Nemours waits till seven, then calls Mathias. Mathias comes down and tells Nemours that Junie left yesterday, and he is not allowed to say where and to forget about her. She also said she never wanted to see him again. Junie is seen on a ship departing for somewhere else.
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