Ifeanyi Uche

French II
Dr. Justin Niati
18th March, 2015

From the movie title: The Story Of Adle H, it can be deduced that the movie was directly
from her diary. Adle Hugo under the shadow of her father, Victor Hugo, one of the most
famous man alive at the time. She tries to turn her self-destructive love for a cad into a work of
art. Director Franois Truffaut used passion, obsession, fame, pain, madness, rejection,
independence, deceit, humiliation and politics as the themes in his movie.
Although the movie portrayed the life of Adle Hugo, I would prefer to give the movie the
title, broken hearts because majority of characters in the movie were sad due to one reason or
the other. For example, Adle drove herself into becoming mad apparently because of a love
affair gone sour. Her dad was sadden and disappointed by her behavior and her mother ill health
even got worse which lead to her death all because their hearts were all broken. Poor Lieutenant
Pinsons heart was also broken when Adle Hugo caused the cancelation of his engagement to
someone else.
After watching the movie I can say that my favorite character is Adle Hugo played by
Isabelle Adjani. Isabelle Adjani was outstanding because throughout the movie, she showed her
people could be emotionally and psychologically unstable especially when they are denied things
they are obsessed about. Adle Hugo is my favorite character because her repressed life has

resulted in a hunger so insatiable, although her obsession nearly destroyed her. For me, as a first
generation college student from a poor family in Nigeria, in West Africa I also have an insatiable
hunger to get educated and become successful in life. I am willing to burn candles all night and
to leave my comfort zone to pass my exams.

Adles psychiatric feelings and behaviors such as her beliefs of having a communication
with her late older sister Lopoldine via sance who was drowned in an accident; lying to her
family; making life miserable for Lieutenant Pinson while he was in Halifax (including canceling
his engagement to someone else); spying on him, happily, as he makes love to another woman
are uncommon in my country. In my culture, a woman feel pains especially when a man leaves
or does not have affections for her again. Unlike Adle, after a while she gets over him and
moves on; though she will try to win him back but the expense of her life or future.
Even though one can say that the movie is depicts sour romance for Adle, I will definitely
recommend this movie to my friends or family because the movie passes a lot of messages to its
viewers. Most scenes affect the audience in numerous ways, as it is seen in absolute despair in
Adles affection but there is also a sense of comedy in them. It is funny that she has to dress in a
mans outfit in order to meet with Lieutenant Pinson. Also, Adle says he can sleep with other
women if he marries her. She offers him money. She tells people she is pregnant by him with a
cushion stuffed under her dress. She even considers employing a hypnotist to juju him into
loving her. All her actions and plans of getting back her love were hilarious yet she never gave
up. In as much as it is just movie about the true life story of Adle Hugo who was the second

daughter of the great French poet and novelist Victor Hugo, I believe that situations like this still
happen in our world today.
The soundtrack in the movie is full of the sounds of the things associated with the olden days
- carriages riding over cobblestones, pens scratching across vellum, servants arriving and
departing with important messages, bells that tinkle over the doors of bookshops etc.
As a student with great future ahead, I learned from this movie that I must never give up on
my dreams until I achieved them but I must never let it to destroy who I am; Even though I get
older and become independence of my parents, I must always obey them;
Indeed the movie, The Story Of Adle H, is a great masterpiece which shows how a purposive
passionate obsession can end up to become madness.