Blue is the Warmest Colour

To anyone well aged and jaded, or fresh out of a Sundance screening, the term ‘coming-of-age’ drama is likely to engender a nervy shudder. There’s only so many varying ways to present a child’s realisation of who he/she is, or what he/she wants to be – at least, this belief has been instilled in us by many films within the genre; Jordan Vogt-Robert’s recent Kings of Summer is a prime example of a film that’s content to play things by the book, relying on a youthful humour to distract us from its thin, cautionary tale of humility. Other films, like the Palme D’or winner Blue is the Warmest Colour, apparently adopt a bolder approach in confronting true desires at the heart of a flowering emergence into adulthood (not that I’ve seen it yet, mind you).