* Domestic life is presented as boring and stultifying and contrasts strongly with erotic life, but is that really an uncommon message in most movies or novels? That being said Blue is the Warmest Color is very good at juxtapositions. It’s also the kind of movie that I should find horribly boring yet didn’t, and not primarily for the obvious reasons.

* “Traveling opens your mind,” a character says at the end, but does he mean “legs” as many people do when they speak to the virtues of travel? French art, based on my unrepresentative sample, depicts boredom well. Also, isn’t France supposed to be the land of tolerance? The New York Times depicts it that way.

* The gawkiness of adolescence is depicted effectively; this is both a positive and negative at once. So too does the movie catch the faux knowingness and unwillingness to admit ignorance.

* Peak experiences count for a lot and yet how many people explicitly structure their lives around such experiences?

* Relatively few girls seem willing to embrace who they are in a sexual context; that is one reason the Duke porn freshman is interesting: she isn’t following the shame script. “Seem” may be key here.

* There are many more and longer soulful looks than there would be in an American movie but they tend to work. How much of attraction happens at the nonverbal level?

* This is hardly a novel idea but many social attacks on others are really projections of our own insecurities.

* Emma understands that there is no law in the arena. Adèle does not. She should read less Sartre and more Paglia.

* As a kid you’re judge but what you hope to do or accomplish, but at some point that flips and you’re judged by what you have accomplished. That transition is rarely announced either.