Written and directed by Céline Sciamma
Starring Noémie Merlant, Adèle Haenel, and Valeria Golina
MPAA rating: R, for depictions of female “friendship”
Running time: 2 hours 1 minute

by Jaime Davis, The Fixer

Past loves have a way of sticking with us, whether we want them to or not. It’s as if there’s a ghost trailing you, taking the shape of the person, or your memories, or what you knew of them, or what was once between you…tugging on you to wonder, or at the very least, remember. In Portrait of a Lady on Fire, a dreamy, female-centric vision of two women fatefully falling in love in 18th century France, we watch one character, Marianne (Noémie Merlant), as she’s haunted by the ghost of her love Héloise before, during, and after the inevitable end of their relationship.