The Story of Adèle H. (1975) review

Adèle Hugo, daughter of Victor, travels all the way to Nova Scotia to be with her true love, a soldier, only the soldier doesn't care about her at all (in fact, he's already got a replacement!). Simple rejection doesn't deter a woman willing to cross the Atlantic, and foolish Adèle goes from predictable to pathetic by the film's end, lying to her parents, trying to ruin the soldier's life and behaving like a spoiled child (her breakdown in Barbados and subsequent zombie-like behavior is spooky and a little funny) - the final shots suggest a kind of adoration by Truffaut that doesn't appear warranted (or are we supposed to find her relentless pursuit of this man to be admirable?). Isabelle Adjani's performance is a tour-de-force of hysteria though the acting in general is rocky (the filmmaker Bruce Robinson, as the soldier, doesn't appear capable of doing much more than gritting his teeth, though this could be a script issue).