Great visuals, story delivers no surprises

Fantastic!

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

This classic 1980s French film opens a week after handyman Zorg meets the beautiful nineteen year old Betty. He works restoring beach houses at somewhat rundown resort on the Mediterranean coast. In his spare time he has written a novel; Betty is convinced that it is a work of genius; he isn't so sure. It soon becomes apparent that Betty is more than a little unstable. After one particular incident they move to Paris and Betty types up Zorg's manuscript and starts sending it to publishers... it is clear that they are less impressed with it than she is but Zorg hides the rejection letters to avoid upsetting her. As the film progresses she becomes more and more unstable but Zorg still loves her.It is hard to categorise this film; it is sexy, it is funny but it is also tragic. The love between Zorg and Betty seems very real making it all the more tragic as it becomes obvious that rather than just being a bit wild she is gradually losing her sanity. This leads to violent outbursts against those who upset her. Thankfully the depressing aspects of the story are balanced out by some very funny moments. The opening scene makes it clear this film will not be for those put off by nudity as we see the protagonists having sex; both characters are seen naked regularly throughout the film. For the most part this is fairly matter of fact. The characters are fun to watch; not just Zorg and Betty but also the people they befriend during the film. The cast does a fine job, particularly Jean-Hughes Anglade and Beatrice Dalle as our protagonists Zorg and Betty. The version of the film I watched was the three hour long director's cut; I didn't feel I was watching such a long film though as I was enjoying the story so much.These comments are based on watching the film in French with English subtitles.

There are two versions of this movie. One is short version and the other is lengthy uncut version. Short version is just another romantic drama movie. Nothing special. But the uncut version is a real masterpiece. The experience of watching this movie is not like watching it as a spectator; but as a participant. If the actors felt happy, we feel it. If they are crying, we too are crying. If they made love, we feel the pleasure of it. Such strong acting. It is the experience of watching the actual lives of two people through a secret window.

i saw the 185 minute version and maybe that's why i don't give it a higher review...i don't agree with Roger Ebert's take on this but i do think it's way over rated...the acting is good enough and the settings, hues, rooms, buildings, camera work etc. are spectacular and beautiful to look at...the couple's relationship gets to be a drag to watch...one, no nuttier than they other...if he cared about her he would've come up with a shrink or something...i felt, after awhile, the thing was too contrived...i heard one reviewer say Betty Blue is great and Million Dollar Baby was lousy and i wished i hadn't read that dude because he told the ending...at least this is a spoiler...i think Betty Blue is OK but Million Dollar Baby light years more enjoyable and moves along telling lots more in the time alloted...this is a pretty film, a slow film, well acted and put together...the story is contrived too much...a different, but same, Cuckoos Nest...it's a comedy at times cutting itself up i think...some of the characters , at times , 'over acted'...i enjoyed it though.

I have purchased 37°2 le matin or Betty Blue on DVD about 3 or 4 months ago, mostly because I read a lot about it and despite the 61 comments on this site (62 with mine) and the 577 votes by users from United States (surprise since it was nominated for an Oscar), this title is very well known and not that difficult to find in my country. Anyway, just yesterday I -finally- saw it so the 185 minutes cut of Betty Blue is a near perfect film, certainly not for everyone and I believe you know why. The erotic scenes are there yet sometimes we see unnecessary nudes and some scenes with Jean-Hugues Anglade will make you say, come on man put some clothes on! But we have Béatrice Dalle; both made a great work. Anyway, we have 3 sorts of chapters in the film that we can recognize every time the protagonists, Zorg (Jean-Hugues Anglade) and Betty (Béatrice Dalle), change their place. In the first one we can see how is the life of Zorg, he works for the owner of his and some other houses and he seems to be satisfied with that or at least he understand how are the things. We don't really know how the beautiful Betty entered in his life but we do know how is their relation and how unpredictable things can be and how for an unthinkable factor things can change. I don't think that Zorg would ever imagine that his personal writings, which he used to make just to feel that he was alive, could make him really important for Betty. Since this "chapter" we realize how Betty could react at some difficult circumstances but, of course, as the story grow this reactions gets more and more relevant. Zorg says in the film something like the world is very small for Betty and when she has one thing in mind anything else is careless, so in the third "chapter" they seems to be established, courtesy of their friend Eddy (Gérard Darmon), and ready to be parents but their hope, specially her, will be over soon. As for Betty those things were the only ones in her mind, she was the only one in Zorg's mind, she was his world and she gave sense to his life …This film was based on the 1985 novel 37°2 le matin by Philippe Djian and I know that he really doesn't liked this film. "It's difficult because in the movie you have two characters - in the book I was not sure that I was speaking of two characters. Somewhere in my mind there was only one character who was part male and part female - it wasn't so brutal. If you are a filmmaker, you have to be very light, you have to be delicate. If there is a scene of love in the movie you are not obliged to use music. In this movie and in most movies it's like they're made for children. For example, in Betty Blue I said at the beginning of the book the man has a yellow car and that's all I said. But in the movie from beginning to end you have the yellow car and the yellow car and the yellow car and you have the sunset, and you have the music - so it's too much, it's like pastries - they can be too rich! Each kind of pastry can be good on its own: cream, chocolate, and so on... but if you put them all together, it's horrible!" It may be really interesting to read the novel and if I have the chance to get it, I will not miss it. Meanwhile and anyway, the film is great but it was a fact that I took to long to finally watch it because I felt that it may be a quite difficult viewing but I didn't felt the three hours with this engaging love history that contains explicit, odd, funny, dramatic, love, tragic, etc parts. Each "chapter" is terrific and also quite different from the rest since each takes place in different points of Zorg and Betty's relation yet not in a very long period of their lives. So I, definitely, recommend you this film that definitely is a long way but definitely a great way!