In 1863, the American Civil War is raging, and Great Britain and France have yet to enter into the conflict. For the past year, British troops have been stationed in Halifax, Nova Scotia, carefully checking European passengers disembarking from foreign ships. The beautiful Adèle Hugo, the second daughter of Victor Hugo, makes it through and takes a carriage into Halifax. Traveling under the assumed name of Miss Lewly, Adèle finds accommodations at a boarding house run by Mr. and Mrs. Saunders.
Adèle finds a notary and inquires about a British officer, Lieutenant Albert Pinson, with whom she's had a relationship. Later that day Adèle sees Pinson at a book shop. When she learns that Mr. Saunders will be attending a military dinner which Pinson is likely to attend, Adèle asks him to deliver a letter from her—a love letter announcing her arrival. While showing some old photographs to Mrs. Saunders, she talks about her older sister Léopoldine Hugo, who died in a drowning accident at the age of 19 many years ago just after being married. When Mr. Saunders returns from the dinner, he tells her that he gave Pinson her letter but he did not reply. That night, Adèle has nightmares about drowning.
The next day, Adèle writes to her parents, telling them that she must be with her beloved Pinson and that they are planning to marry, but she will wait for their formal consent. She spends her evenings writing in her journal about her life and her love for Pinson. "I'll be able to win him over through gentleness", she writes. Pinson goes to the boarding house, where he tells Adèle that she must leave Halifax and must stop following him. Adèle believes that if they marry, all his concerns will be resolved. Pinson knows that her parents do not approve of him and his heavy gambling debts. Adèle tries to persuade him, telling him that she's rejected another marriage proposal, threatens to expose him and ruin his military career, and even offers him money for his gambling debts, but he remains unmoved.
In the coming days, Adèle continues writing in her journal, convinced that she is Pinson's wife in spirit. She tries to conjure the ghost of her dead sister to help her. One night, she follows Pinson to the home of his mistress, where she watches them make love. Undeterred, Adèle continues her writing, and her behavior becomes more eccentric. Mr. Whistler, the kind bookseller who provides her with writing paper, shows an interest in her. As she leaves his book shop, she faints from exhaustion. Mr. Whistler visits her at the boarding house and brings her paper, but she refuses to see him. Doctor Murdock visits and diagnoses a mild case of pleurisy. He notices one of her letters is addressed to Victor Hugo and informs Mrs. Saunders of the true identity of her boarder.
Adèle's obsession grows stronger. One day, she writes to her parents telling them that she has married Pinson and that from now on, she should be addressed as Madame Pinson. Upon receiving the news, Victor Hugo posts an announcement of the marriage in his local paper. The news reaches Pinson's colonel. After Pinson writes Victor Hugo to explain that he never will marry Adèle, Hugo writes to his daughter, urging her to return home to Guernsey. Adèle responds to her father's letter with more fantasy, urging her parents to accept Pinson.
Having learned of Adèle's identity, Mr. Whistler offers her a gift of her father's books. She responds in anger and paranoia. She hires a prostitute as a gift for Pinson. She follows him to a theater to see a hypnotist, where she is inspired to think that she can hypnotize Pinson into loving her; she is forced to abandon this plan once she learns that the hypnosis was faked. Adèle begins to go mad with despair. She goes to the father of Pinson's fiancée and claims that he is married to her and that she is carrying his child. The father ends the engagement. She finds Pinson once more, and he again rebukes her, calling her ridiculous. After leaving the boarding house, Adèle continues to deteriorate. She wanders the streets in torn clothes, talking to herself.
In February 1864, Pinson is shipped out to Barbados, and a destitute Adèle follows him. Now married, Pinson learns that Adèle is in Barbados claiming to be his wife. Concerned for her, Pinson searches for her and finds her wandering the streets in rags. When he tries to confront her, Adèle does not acknowledge or recognize him. Helped by a kind former slave, Adèle returns to Paris, where the French Third Republic has been established. Her father places her in an asylum in Saint-Mandé, where she lives for the next 40 years. She gardens, plays the piano and writes in her journal. Adèle Hugo dies in Paris in 1915 at the age of 85.
Jean-Pierre Leursse as the letter-writer in Barbados
Edward J. Jackson as O'Brien, the carriage driver (uncredited)
Carl Hathwell as Hathwell, Lieutenant Pinson's batman (uncredited)
Raymond Falla, OBE, as Judge Johnstone (uncredited)
François Truffaut has a brief, wordless cameo in the film as an officer Adele mistakes for Pinson in Halifax.[7]
Production
Writing about the film, François Truffaut observed:
In writing the script of L'Enfant sauvage based on the memoirs of Dr. Jean Itard, we discovered, Jean Gruault and myself, the enormous pleasure of writing historical fiction based on real events, without inventing anything and without altering documented facts. If it is difficult to construct an unanimistic intrigue involving a dozen characters whose paths entwine, it is almost as difficult to write an animistic film focusing on a single person. I believe that it was this solitary aspect which attracted me most to this project; having produced love stories involving two and three people, I wanted to attempt to create a passionate experience involving a character where the passion was one-way only.[8]
Truffaut had to get the rights from Jean Hugo, Victor Hugo's direct descendant. He gave his consent after reading a treatment on the condition that Victor Hugo did not appear on screen.[1]
Finance was originally sought from Warner Bros but they turned it down as being too literary. The film was financed by United Artists. The original budget was five million francs so the script was simplified to focus more on Adèle.[1]
Although Truffaut had once promised the role of Adèle to Catherine Deneuve, he decided he wanted a new star to play the lead. He screen tested Stacey Tendeter, who had co-starred in his 1971 film Two English Girls, but, after seeing Isabelle Adjani's performances in La Gifle (1974) and on stage, he then decided to cast her. At that time, Adjani was under contract as a stage actress to the Comédie-Française, which refused to release her from her contract. There was a legal dispute, but, in the end, Adjani was able to play the part.[1][9][10]
Filming locations
Most of the film's exterior scenes were shot on location in Guernsey, Channel Islands, and many of the film extras were well-known locals. Both Raymond Falla (who portrayed Judge Johnstone) and Sir Cecil de Sausmarez (who portrayed Lenoir, the notary) were, at the time of filming, prominent island politicians. Scenes set in Halifax were mainly interiors created in a house in St. Peter Port, Guernsey. No filming took place in Halifax.[5] The scenes set in Barbados were shot on the island of Gorée off the coast of Senegal.[1]
As was his custom, Truffaut fell for his leading lady during the shoot.[1] However, Adjani rebuffed his advances. She did not like to rehearse, and filming in Guernsey was an intense emotional experience for most of the crew. Truffaut later wrote to a friend:
You mention the pleasure I must have directing Isabelle A. It's the opposite of pleasure, it's daily suffering for me, and almost an agony for her. For her profession is her religion, and because of that our shoot is a trial for everyone. It would be too easy to say she is difficult, she is not. She is different from all the women in this profession and since she isn't even 20, add to all this (to her genius, let's not be afraid of words), an unawareness of others and their vulnerability, which creates an unbelievable tension.[9]
After a two-year break to read and to write, François Truffaut has come back to moviemaking with new assurance, new elation. The Story of Adèle H. is a musical, lilting film with a tidal pull to it.[11]
In his review in the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert gave the film four stars, calling it "a strange, moody film that belongs very much with the darker side of [Truffaut's] work."[12] Ebert continued:
Truffaut finds a certain nobility in Adèle. He quotes one of the passages in her diaries twice: She writes that she will walk across the ocean to be with her lover. He sees this, not as a declaration of love, but as a statement of a single-mindedness so total that a kind of grandeur creeps into it. Adèle was mad, yes, probably—but she lived her life on such a vast and romantic scale that it's just as well Pinson never married her. He would have been a disappointment.[12]
In his review in The New York Times, Vincent Canby called the film "profoundly beautiful", and Truffaut's "most severe, most romantic meditation upon love."[13] Canby continued:
One of the fascinations of the Truffaut career is in watching the way he circles and explores different aspects of the same subjects that dominate almost all of his films. However, The Story of Adèle H., impeccably photographed by Nestor Almendros (The Wild Child), looks and sounds like no other Truffaut film you've ever seen. ... The colors are deep, rich and often dark, and the soundtrack is full of the noises that one associates with old costume films produced by M-G-M in its great days [13]
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 93% positive rating based on reviews from 27 top film critics, with an average score of 8.1/10.[14]
Box office
The Story of Adèle H. was a modest financial success in France, where it sold 752,160 tickets,[15] but it was considered a box office disappointment.[1]
