Portrait de la jeune fille en feu [Portrait of a Lady on Fire] (2019)

(On Cable TV, July 2020) Hmmm. Let me check the list of what makes reviewers flip over a movie these days: Historical setting, great costumes, foreign-language production, careful directing, deliberate pacing, progressive ideals, non-heteronormative rethinking of familiar stories… yes, Portrait de la jeune fille en feu is almost custom-designed for critical acclaim. Too bad I couldn’t get into it. The pacing is too slow, the production too measured—even the subject matter felt like a rethread of The Favourite… and I never expected to mention The Favourite as “my favourite” of anything. I’ll be the first to say that the film isn’t geared for me, and that I shouldn’t keep harping on its case—but I’ve seen, by now, far too many of what seems to be the same movie playing on the same chords in more or less the same way. And that’s fine—Portrait de la jeune fille en feu ended up as an instant classic, a critic’s favourite, and received an almost-instantaneous consecration into the Criterion pantheon. But it’s not a movie for everyone: If you’re looking for sustained pacing, an unpredictable story, or red-blooded character work that doesn’t seem to belong on a museum’s wall, this isn’t the right pick. Far too long in telling us something that can be predicted almost every step of the way (at least, if you’re familiar with that subgenre), Portrait de la jeune fille en feu is probably a bull’s-eye for some, but it will struggle to get out of that subgenre.