Portrait of a Lady on Fire

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Portrait de la jeune fille en feu) is a 2019 French historical drama film directed by Céline Sciamma. It was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. The film won the Queer Palm at Cannes, becoming the first film directed by a woman to win the award. Sciamma also won the award for Best Screenplay at Cannes.

Plot
At the end of the eighteenth century Marianne, a young painter, is commissioned to paint a portrait of a young woman to be used to elicit marriage proposals. Knowing that the woman, Héloïse, has previously refused to sit for portraits as she does not want to be married, Marianne disguises herself as a lady's maid in order to gain her subject's trust only to find herself inadvertently falling in love with her.

Cast

 * Noémie Merlant as Marianne
 * Adèle Haenel as Héloïse
 * Luàna Bajrami as Sophie
 * Valeria Golino as The Countess

Release
In May 2019, Curzon Artificial Eye acquired the UK distribution rights to the film.

Shortly after premiering at the Cannes Film Festival Neon and Hulu acquired the North American distribution rights to the festival.

Reception
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 100% based on 25 reviews, with an average rating of 9.31/10. Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 93 out of 100, based on 11 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".