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The coming of age narrative tends to come alive for audiences in its reflection and recollection for us of situations and memories that simply cannot be denied. We long to re-live our own experiences seemingly mirrored on the screen, but something quite startlingly different happens in Abdellatif Kechiche’s Palme d’Or winner (with prizes going to the director as well as his two stars – a first at Cannes) Blue is the Warmest Color.

Blue captures the raw sexual awakening of Adéle (Adéle Exarchopoulos), a shy teenager confronting internal questions about her sexual orientation that rise up once she passes Emma (Léa Seydoux), a slightly older artist with blue-tinted hair in the street one day. A journey based on this familiar first step wanders into the most intimate spaces shared between two people over the course of several years (which at almost three hours, never drags or feels exploitative). Yet, it is not the open sexuality that will enflame audiences; rather it is the naked expression of feeling from Exarchopoulos and Seydoux that will shock viewers into wishing their past experiences had an ounce of the haunting passion radiating from these performers. These women show us how to live like the young, when every emotion is too much to bear.

The real warmth though comes from Exarchopoulos. The roundness of her face belongs to the Romantic era of visual arts. There is innocence and an appalling (she shames us, by showing us how we should live) openness on display as she rushes into emotional danger; nothing but pain lies ahead, yet she’s fearless in her pursuit of the lusty moments of love.

I would contrast her performance here with the award-winning turn by Jennifer Lawrence in Silver Linings Playbook because there is something similar in their approach. Lawrence seems to lead with her face, a more conventionally attractive one by popular standards, but there’s a hardened edge to her, as if her fiery cool work in Winter’s Bone sealed a sheen of invulnerability in her. That’s why she works in The Hunger Game‘s action heroine mode so well (or as the bluest of blue mutants in X-Men: First Class).

Exarchopoulos is all lover, but that doesn’t mean she’s not a fighter too. She’s ready and willing to get down and dirty for love. In the last third of Blue is the Warmest Color, as her relationship strains and turns, she’s one of the fatally walking wounded, with all the blood and life draining from her. But we know that she will survive because even in those final moments, the soft openness remains. What a powerful weapon.