The story focuses exclusively on a heterosexual romance between Alex and Michèle. It lacks explicit non-cisnormative identities or queer perspectives.

Michèle maintains significant agency as a struggling artist despite her circumstances. The film avoids traditional hierarchies, favoring mutual vulnerability over masculine dominance.

The cast is a homogeneous Eurocentric group set in Paris. The narrative ignores racial intersectionality to focus on class and physical frailty.

The film rejects traditional Western institutional values by centering on social outcasts. It portrays organized society as distant and inconsequential to the protagonists.

Michèle’s progressive vision loss is a central, grave driver of the plot. The film treats physical suffering with poetic gravity rather than cliché.