Bonjour Tristesse a melancholy new take on controversial 1954 novel

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 02/05/2025 (475 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A sun-drenched, languid mood piece about the end of summer and the beginning of adulthood, Bonjour Tristesse alternates between sultry heat and cool emotional affect.

(Despite the French title, the film’s international cast speaks mostly English, with a smattering of French with English subtitles. There’s also a version showing in which the English is subtitled in French, so make sure to check.)

Montreal-born filmmaker Durga Chew-Bose makes an ambitious but flawed directorial debut with this take on Françoise Sagan’s 1954 coming-of-age novel, published when the French writer was just 18. A literary sensation, it was later adapted into a 1958 film.

Chew-Bose’s version updates the story’s setting, but struggles with modernizing the novel’s subtle undercurrents and sexual politics. While examining its often superficial and aimless characters, the film risks becoming superficial and aimless itself.

Cécile (American Lily McInerney of Palm Trees and Power Lines) is a 17-year-old girl on vacation at a beautiful villa on the Côte d’Azur with her rakish father Raymond (Danish actor Claes Bang, known for The Northman, The Square and Bad Sisters).

Since the death of Cécile’s mother, the two have formed a tight, indulgent, affectionate unit. They even play solitaire as a pair.

Cécile is falling into an idle flirtation with a young neighbour, Cyril (Quebec actor/musician Aliocha Schneider). Raymond’s latest girlfriend, Elsa (French actor Naïlia Harzoune of Gone for Good), seems to be one of an ongoing series; Cécile doesn’t regard her as a threat to their summertime idyll.

The dynamics shift, however, with the arrival of Anne (Love & Friendship’s Chloë Sevigny), a close friend of Cécile’s late mother. Anne, a successful designer, is disciplined and a little formal. She chastises Cécile for flunking her exams and worries she’s being distracted by Cyril.

As Raymond and Anne become closer, Cécile schemes to break up the relationship, with fateful results.

Chew-Bose’s production design is thoughtful and elegant, the visual images carefully composed and beautifully lensed.

Bonjour Tristesse falls into that subgenre of films — including 2017’s Call Me by Your Name, the 1969 French film La Piscine and its 2015 remake A Bigger Splash — that seem made to provoke summerhouse envy. There is a lot of leisurely coffee on the sun-dappled patio, a lot of candlelit dining tables crowded with wine bottles and a lot of lazy intergenerational loafing.

But there’s not much sense of the conflicts running underneath all this extraordinary surface beauty.

In 1954, Sagan’s novel earned a papal denunciation, but the relaxed approach to sex seen in this haute bohemian household doesn’t seem quite so transgressive in 2025. In fact, seeing all the adults casually condone Cécile’s cigarette-smoking will probably be more of a shock to contemporary audiences.

Along with everyone just smoking their heads off, there’s a French arthouse feel to the dialogue, which tends to be loaded and meaningful, with conversations about youth and age, freedom and responsibility, memory and regret.

Too often, however, these themes are spoken rather than felt and motivations remain undeveloped or even unlikely. The individual performances can be good, but they don’t come together as an ensemble.

McInerny has the challenge of working in the shadow of Jean Seberg, who — with her absolutely iconic pixie cut — played Cécile in the 1958 film. She has some lovely, poignant moments, but there are also times when it’s hard to gauge whether the flatness of her response is about the awkwardness of adolescence or just poor acting.

Bang has a line in playing large, arrogant, unreflective men, and he conveys a sense of thoughtless charm here. Sevigny, as always, brings her spiky and original screen presence, but her Anne seems to exist somehow out of time.

Melancholy rather than tragic, Chew-Bose’s debut is promising in some ways, a letdown in others. Still, ennui never looked so good.

alison.gillmor@freepress.mb.ca