Expanded to its intended length, the movie feels not like a failed narrative hastily washed in luridness but a purposefully meandering allegory of artistic frustration.

If Betty Blue feasts on the bodies of its leads, it's this director's cut that fully establishes the movie's artistic bona fides.

Curvy, ripe Dalle, only 21 at the time and in her first screen role, completely commits to the part.

Betty Blue evinces a filmmaker with a profound understanding of desire: The mysteries of its creation and sustenance, as well as the irrational choices it can induce us to make.