‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire’ Is 119 Minutes of Yearning

I didn’t need to see Portrait of a Lady on Fire to know it’s two painful hours of women yearning for each other, only to ultimately not end up together (it’s basically Disobedience on the beach), but I had to watch it anyway. Because I’ve already watched all the gay things and I still have 528 hours left of quarantine.

The film opens with one of the main characters, Marianne (Noémie Merlant), teaching an art class. She notices an old painting of hers propped up in the back of the room. It is, you guessed it, a portrait of a lady on fire. She stares off into the distance, daydreaming about her former lesbian lover, as her students look on, uncomfortable.

We learn that years ago, Marianne was hired to paint a wedding portrait of Héloïse (Adèle Haenel), who’s mother, Comtesse (Valeria Golino), doesn’t understand boundaries. Basically, Comtesse hires Marianne to paint Héloïse against her will. The last artist she hired to paint her failed, because I guess Héloïse is The Flash, or this guy had a real shitty memory and was unable to recall her face well enough to recreate it.

Like all Lesbian Yearning Movies, Marianne and Héloïse barely speak for most of the film and yet we’re meant to believe they are madly in love. The few conversations they do have are drowned out by the loud crashing of waves. (Most…