Advertisement
Adèle Exarchopoulos

Adèle Exarchopoulos

French actress
Adèle Exarchopoulos is a French actress. She had her career breakthrough starring as Adèle in the romance Blue Is the Warmest Colour.Wikipedia
BornNovember 22, 1993
HometownParis, France
Net worth$2 million
Height5'8" (1.73m)
PartnerDoums, Jérémie Laheurte
ParentsDidier Exarchopoulos, Marina Niquet
Profile

Top Stories

The White Crow review: heartfelt Nureyev biopic that’s light on sex appeal

  • Dir: Ralph Fiennes;?Starring: Oleg Ivenko, Adèle Exarchopoulos, Ralph Fiennes, Chulpan Khamatova, Sergei Polunin. 12A Cert, 127 min. The White Crow is clearly a labour of love. Inspired by Julie Kavanagh’s superb 2007 biography of Rudolf Nureyev, it centres on the Kirov Ballet’s visit to Paris in the summer of 1961, building up to an impressively tense depiction of the era-defining dancer’s defection to the west at Le Bourget airport on June 16 that year. However, writer Dave Hare and director Ralph Fiennes also cut constantly and ambitiously between eras: between the “present” in Paris; Nureyev’s birth in 1938 (on a Trans-Siberian train near Irkutsk) and grindingly poor childhood; and his days at the fabled Vaganova Academy in St Petersburg. This is characteristic of a film that goes to almost obsessive – if ultimately only partly successful – lengths in the interests of top-to-bottom accuracy. True, there’s the odd dash of Nouvelle Vague-ish flamboyance in Paris, but in the main, Fiennes as opted for a hand-held, documentary, almost wilfully shaky shooting style that plunges you into the moment, while Russians are played by Russians, French by French and so on, with people speaking in English only when it’s the characters’ shared lingua franca. The only, if notable exception to this is Fiennes himself, breaking his own rules by co-starring (with a sympathetic combination of authority, weariness and tenderness) as Nureyev’s teacher and mentor Alexander Pushkin, even if he goes a long way towards atoning for this cheeky transgression by speaking in Russian throughout. Also crucial to the film’s bid for verisimilitude is the fact that every dancer (again, Pushkin the exception of sorts) is played by a real-life dancer, which gives it a crucial ring of truth, never more so than in the all-important rehearsal scenes. Central to this, of course, is the casting of Kazan-based dancer Oleg Ivenko as Nureyev. A first-timer to screen acting, and often having to speak in English, Ivenko acquits himself valiantly. Although not in the Nureyev league (though who is?), he dances well, looks like him, and gives a passionate rendering of a burgeoning artist determined to find his voice, not only via dance, but also via his appreciation of the masterpieces in the Hermitage and the Louvre. Oleg Ivenko as Nureyev in The White Crow Credit: Larry Horicks But – and this was perhaps always going to be a stumbling-block – Nureyev was a man who could turn every head in a room simply by strolling into it, and that quality is impossible to fake. For all his physical and facial resemblance to Nureyev, and his aptly volcanic outbursts, Ivenko never quite captures the feral, insolent, intensely sexual charisma that came off the great man like steam – but nor does the film quite encourage him to. We do see him in his Paris hotel room eyeing the bare bottom of fellow Kirov star Yuri Soloviev (Sergei Polunin) in what we assume is post-coital admiration, but there is little or no hint of the physically voracious side of Nureyev that would ultimately lead to his death from an Aids-related ilness in 1993, but which was also inseparable from his blazing presence as a performer. And, although there is a definite spark to the scene in which Pushkin’s wife, Xenia (an excellent Chulpan Khamatova) seduces him, this seems all the older character’s and actress’s doing. You can’t help wondering what sort of newly kindled fire-behind-the-eyes Polunin might have brought to this encounter had that real-life ballet rebel been cast as Nureyev, while my longstanding fantasy about the young Tommy Lee Jones starring in a Nureyev biopic (they were absolute dead-ringers, from cheekbones to f***-you attitude) will inevitably have to remain just that. Bound in with this carnal coyness is the film’s refusal to go all-out with presenting Paris as what must have seemed an anything-goes utopia to the young Nureyev and which, on some level, must have helped fuel his desire to defect. Although the after-hours scenes involving Nureyev, Adèle Exarchopoulos’s elegantly drawn socialite Clara Saint et al feel like jolly decent fun, they lack edge: overall a little less chin-stroking art appreciation, a little more thigh-stroking mischief, would have helped.? The result? A serious-minded, often beautiful, utterly heartfelt character study that nevertheless lacks its astonishing protagonist’s fleet-footedness and only partly captures what made him tick.

Videos

'Blue Is the Warmest Color' Theatrical Trailer

With Adele Exarchopoulos and Lea Seydoux.

MOVIES & TV SHOWS

Beating Hearts
Beating Hearts
2h 46min
2024
Wingwomen
Wingwomen
1h 54min
2023
Les cinq diables
Les cinq diables
1h 35min
2022
Rien à foutre
Rien à foutre
1h 55min
2021
The Stronghold
The Stronghold
1h 45min
2020
Revenir
Revenir
1h 17min
2019
Sibyl
Sibyl
1h 40min
2019
Orpheline
Orpheline
1h 51min
2016
Apnée
Apnée
0h 14min
2015
The Anarchists
The Anarchists
1h 41min
2015
Qui vive
Qui vive
1h 23min
2014
Des morceaux de moi
Des morceaux de moi
1h 30min
2012
Le règne animal
Le règne animal
2h 8min
2024
A Real Job
A Real Job
1h 41min
2023
Passages
Passages
1h 31min
2023
BAC Nord
BAC Nord
1h 45min
2021
Mandibules
Mandibules
1h 17min
2021
The White Crow
The White Crow
R
2h 7min
2019
Racer and the Jailbird
Racer and the Jailbird
R
2h 10min
2018
The Last Face
The Last Face
R
2h 11min
2017
Down by Love
Down by Love
1h 50min
2016
Blue Is the Warmest Color
Blue Is the Warmest Color
NC-17
2h 55min
2013
Trouble at Timpetill
Trouble at Timpetill
1h 35min
2008

AWARDS

YearAssociationsCategoryWorkResult
2024César AwardBest Actress in a Supporting RoleAll Your FacesWinner
2023César AwardBest ActressZero F... GivenNominated
2022César AwardBest Actress in a Supporting RoleMandibles (film)Nominated
2014César AwardBest Female NewcomerBlue Is the Warmest ColourWinner
Advertisement
Advertisement