Bonjour Tristesse: French Novel Adaptation Fails to Mesh Its Sad and Lovely Components

By Chris Knight

Rating: B-plus
Bonjour Tristesse, though based on the French novel of the same name, might have better been titled Bonjour Beauté.

Sure, there is sadness in it, particularly at the end, but beauty is its leitmotif, bleeding out of every frame. The combination of extreme loveliness and stilted dialogue make it a pleasant viewing experience, but not an especially engrossing one.

Claes Bang and Chloe Sevigny in Bonjour Tristesse

For those (like me) who know neither the 1954 novel by Françoise Sagan nor its 1958 film adaptation directed by Otto Preminger (and featuring Jean Seberg, David Niven and Deborah Kerr), Bonjour Tristesse is the story of Cécile, a young woman spending her summer in the south of France with her father, Raymond, and his girlfriend Elsa.
Their life is languorous, even lazy. Food appears, yet no one ever seems to cook or clean up. Days are spent reading, swimming and speaking in cryptic gnomes and inscrutable aphorisms.

“I can’t wait to have old friends,” young Cécile sighs. Her dad can’t understand why people disparage luck: “I’ve always found it dependable.” Or: “Everyone looks vulnerable in socks.”
That last line is from Anne (Chloë Sevigny), an old friend of Raymond whom he invites to visit, only to discover that he loves her. This comes as a shock to Elsa, who immediately moves out, and also Cécile, who starts plotting a way to bring her back.
Bonjour Tristesse is the writing/directing debut of Montreal-based Durga Chew-Bose, and she’s off to a wonderful start, evoking the styles and rhythms of mid-century France so well that viewers will feel an anachronistic jitter every time someone pulls out a cellphone. (Raymond tries to get Cécile to chuck hers in the sea at one point, but she can’t bring herself to do it.)

And the cast, while perhaps not up there with the Seberg-Niven-Kerr triumvirate, are an appealing bunch. I remember seeing Sevigny in The Last Days of Disco, in the last days of the 20th century, and have been chastely in love ever since.

Claes Bang (Raymond) I discovered more recently in 2017’sThe Square, but he is an imposing figure on the screen. And Lily McInerny brings a gamine grace to Cécile, and an odd habit of looking serious when you expect her to smile, and vice versa.
It’s worth noting that the food gets almost as many close-ups as the actors - buttered toast, a dish of ice cream or a trio of apples never looked lovelier. But when you find yourself lusting over a movie’s snacks, that might be a sign that its emotional heft is a little light

.That said, the cinematography is wonderful, as is the film’s soundtrack, which opens with a rendition of Irving Berlin’s Blue Skies by Aliocha Schneider, who also plays Cécile’s summer fling. It moves next to an instrumental version of Moonlight in Vermont, and never looks back.
In short, there is much to enjoy in Bonjour Tristesse, but the film as a whole never quite rises to the level of its best parts. And that’s a little sad. 

Bonjour Tristesse. Directed by Durga Chew-Bose. Starring Lily McInerny, Chloe Sevigny, and Claes Bang. Opens May 2 in cinemas.