The film follows Adèle (Exarchopoulos), a French teenager, who discovers desire and freedom when Emma (Seydoux), an aspiring painter, enters her life.

At one party, Adèle meets Emma's pregnant colleague Lise, gallery owner Joachim, and aspiring actor Samir.

In Sight & Sound, film scholar Sophie Mayer suggests that in Blue is the Warmest Colour, "Like homophobia, the lesbian here melts away.

[19] The issue of perspective was also addressed in a Film Comment review by Kristin M. Jones, who wrote, "Emma's supposedly sophisticated friends make eager remarks about art and female sexuality that seem to mirror the director's problematic approach toward the representation of women".

Paulina Plazas wrote in IndieWire that throughout the film, bisexual erasure is "central to understanding Adèle's particular sense that she does not belong as she comes of age.

"[21] One recurring thematic element critics and audiences identified is the division of social class and the exploration of freedom and love between the two central characters.

Perhaps one of the most significant differences between the families is that Emma's is aware of their lesbian relationship, while Adèle's conservative parents are led to believe the women are just friends.

One Film Comment critic wrote, "As in Kechiche's earlier work, social class, and the divisions it creates, are a vital thread; he even changed the first name of the story's passionate protagonist from Clémentine to that of his actress, partly because it means 'justice' in Arabic.

[26] Director and screenwriter Abdellatif Kechiche developed the premise for Blue Is the Warmest Colour while directing his second feature film, Games of Love and Chance (2003).

[27] Although Maroh's story takes precedence in the adaptation, Adèle's character, named "Clémentine" in the book, differs from the original, as explored by Charles Taylor in The Yale Review: "The novel includes scenes of the girls being discovered in bed and thrown out of the house and speeches like What's horrible is that people kill each other for oil and commit genocide, not that they give their love to someone.

It was later, a day before the New Year, that Kechiche decided to offer Exarchopoulos the leading role in the film; as he said in an interview, "I chose Adèle the minute I saw her.

Cinematographer Sofian El Fani used the Canon EOS C300 camera with Angénieux zoom lenses, and the entire production was undertaken in a digital workflow.

According to the report, crew members said the production occurred in a "heavy" atmosphere with behaviour close to "moral harassment," which led some to quit.

[43][44] The camerawork and many of Kechiche's directorial decisions give the film a true-to-life feel, which has led audiences to read meaning into it that they derive from their personal experiences.

In The Yale Review, Charles Taylor wrote: "Instead of fencing its young lovers within a petting zoo... Kechiche removes the barriers that separate us from them.

[46][47] The colour blue is used extensively throughout the film—from the lighting in the gay club Adèle visits to the dress she wears in the last scene and most notably in Emma's hair and eyes.

As Emma grows out of her relationship with Adèle and their passion wanes, she removes the blue from her hair and adopts a more natural, conservative hairstyle.

[66][67] The film had a limited release in the U.S. and it grossed an estimated $101,116 in its first weekend ending 25 October 2013, with an average of $25,279 for four theatres in New York City and Los Angeles.

The site's critical consensus is: "Raw, honest, powerfully acted, and deliciously intense, Blue Is the Warmest Colour offers some of modern cinema's most elegantly composed, emotionally absorbing drama.

It is an extraordinary, prolonged popping-candy explosion of pleasure, sadness, anger, lust and hope, and contained within it – although only just – are the two best performances of the festival, from Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux.

[79] Andrew Chan of the Film Critics Circle of Australia wrote, "Not unlike Wong Kar-wai's most matured effort in cinema, Happy Together, director Abdellatif Kechiche knows love and relationship well and the details he goes about everything is almost breathtaking to endure.

"[80] At Cannes, the film shocked some critics with its long and graphic sex scenes (although fake genitalia were used),[81][39] leading them to speculate that it might require editing before screening in cinemas.

[82][83][84][85] The judging panel, which included Steven Spielberg, Ang Lee, and Nicole Kidman, made an unprecedented move to award the Palme d'Or to the film's two main actresses along with the director.

[86][87]Justin Chang, writing for Variety, said that the film contains "the most explosively graphic lesbian sex scenes in recent memory".

[89] Manohla Dargis of The New York Times called the film "wildly undisciplined" and overlong, and wrote that it "feels far more about Mr. Kechiche's desires than anything else".

[90][91] Conversely, Richard Brody wrote in The New Yorker: "The problem with Kechiche's scenes is that they're too good—too unusual, too challenging, too original—to be assimilated ... to the familiar moviegoing experience.

Their duration alone is exceptional, as is their emphasis on the physical struggle, the passionate and uninhibited athleticism of sex, the profound marking of the characters' souls by their sexual relationship.

"[100] While praising Kechiche's originality, calling his adaptation "coherent, justified and fluid ... a masterstroke",[101] Maroh also felt that he failed to capture the lesbian heart of the story, and disapproved of the sex scenes.

And among the only people we didn't hear giggling were the potential guys too busy feasting their eyes on an incarnation of their fantasies on screen".

[103][104][105] Kechiche dedicated the award to "the youth of France" and the Tunisian Revolution, where "they have the aspiration to be free, to express themselves and love in full freedom".