Adorkable: Pre-breakdown Yves is a shy wunderkind, exploring his sexuality and building his confidence as a designer.
Award Snub: Saint Laurent was the film that France submitted to the Oscars for Best Foreign Language film, and it did not get nominated. Saint Laurent also was nominated for more Cesar Awards, but it was Pierre Niney who got Best Actor over Gaspard Ulliel.
Broken Base: This film is controversial among fans of Yves Saint Laurent, with some objecting to the positive portrayal of Pierre and others fiercely defending Pierre and others wishing it focused more on the fashion and less on the romantic storyline. Fans of this film and its rival Saint Laurent also tend to disagree.
Victoire's racism against the Japanese clients seems not only to be a Take That! toward the real woman but also to recognize that the 1950s were very different times when it came to race in France despite some of the House of Saint Laurent's progressiveness for its time.
Colonialism is pretty well accepted, even by Yves who rejects the bourgeois.
Fair for Its Day: Yves Saint Laurent took inspiration from other cultures for some of his designs, which in hindsight counts as cultural appropriation but at the time, his work was seen as a progressive celebration of diverse cultures. He also used non-white models early on, which was also progressive, but they were sometimes dressed in ways that played them up as exotic. The film downplays all of this, but it's there.
Pierre Niney's performance was universally praised, even if it operates inside a formulaic film. He did win the Cesar award as Best Actor as well.
Guillaume Gallienne's performance was also lauded, with many critics praising the normally comedic actor's dramatic chops, saying he made the famously controversial and combative Bergé sympathetic and compelling without glossing over his controlling ways.
Just Here for Godzilla: Even critics who thought the film was formulaic, praised the presence of Saint Laurent's actual designs in the fashion show scenes.
By wrapping up the story in 1976, the movie misses the legendary conflict between Yves and Pierre and Tom Ford, after Ford took over The House of Laurent's ready-to-wear label. Ford has been vocal about how badly he was treated by Pierre and Yves, and Pierre was in return vocal about how ghastly and boring Yves found Tom's work. It may well have been enjoyable to see an older Pierre and Yves team up to make a tacky young American designer's life miserable.
While it doesn't fit a classic love story framework, the aftermath of Yves's and Pierre's breakup is interesting. The most common story is Pierre was devastated by the breakup but when no longer officially with Yves, he was able to develop his own friend circle and pursue his interests in politics, book collecting and the opera. He became a fixture in the power circles of France, using his influence to promote gay rights. Yves, on the other hand, became something of a recluse and did little socializing outside a few close friends. He became more and more dependent on Pierre, even if they were no longer officially together.
Unintentionally Unsympathetic: The film doesn't shy away from portraying Pierre and Yves as flawed, but as the story progresses Yves's bad behavior becomes more and more difficult to justify by his creative genius and/or mental problems. He never really tries to get better and often seems ungrateful to the devoted Pierre.
