Simple Passion (2020), director Danielle Arbid adapts Annie Ernaux’s autobiographical novel into a slow-burning portrait of obsession, longing, and erotic vulnerability. At the center of this intimate story is Hélène, played by Laetitia Dosch — a woman consumed by desire, portrayed with striking honesty and sensual depth.
Hélène is a university lecturer, cultured and intelligent, yet utterly destabilized by her affair with a younger, emotionally unavailable Russian diplomat. What makes her captivating is not just her beauty, but the way that beauty is shown: unvarnished, unfiltered, and deeply human. Laetitia Dosch brings a luminous naturalism to the role, portraying a woman whose sexuality is not performed for others, but lived fully for herself.
Her charm lies in her vulnerability — in the way she gives herself over to passion without pretense or pride. She is graceful and attractive, but the film doesn’t frame her beauty through fantasy. Instead, it invites us into her private world: her messy emotions, her longing stares, her silences, her solitude. This approach makes her sensuality feel real, rooted in emotional intensity rather than polished eroticism.
The sexuality in Simple Passion is bold, direct, and unapologetic. The sex scenes are intimate and frequent, not to titillate but to reveal — they are windows into her psyche, her obsession, and the control that desire begins to exert over her life. Hélène’s beauty becomes inseparable from her pain, her longing, and her loss of control.
In Hélène, we see not a caricature of romance or lust, but a full portrait of a woman undone by passion. Her attractiveness is not a plot device — it's the raw, living surface of her emotional unraveling.
Simple Passion is, at its heart, about what it feels like to desire someone more than they desire you. And through Laetitia Dosch’s compelling, exposed performance, Hélène becomes a symbol of how beauty and sexuality can be both empowering and consuming.
