‘Bonjour Tristesse’ Review – Durga Chew-Bose’s Reimagining Of A Thorny Novel Lacks Bite

There is a distinctly timeless quality to Durga Chew-Bose’s Bonjour Tristesse, but only just. Near the beginning of the writer-turned-filmmaker’s debut, the young Cécile (an excellent Lily McInerny, the Palm Trees and Power Lines standout) is seen holding seashells up to the sunlight to assess their translucency before placing them in an organized pattern on a beach towel, where they sit alongside rocks, shards of coral, and other earthy items that have washed ashore. A few frames on, her father is encouraging her to toss her iPhone into the sea; we had yet to see a cell phone by this point, leaving viewers dangling comfortably in a place without a designated time. Then, later, one character asks another which section of the newspaper they’d like to borrow. No reply comes; is this because we’re operating in modern times, where sections of the paper can be accessed via smartphone apps rather than by flipping pages, or more frighteningly, where no one could give a damn about the newspaper whatsoever?

The competition between (and within) these setpieces serves as the more enticing element of Chew-Bose’s film – a not-so-subtle conflict that poses one’s desperation to maintain modernity against their concerted longing for simpler, classic times that we now only see in films and novels – and they help manufacture a complex (albeit uncomplicated) atmosphere in which the movie and its characters can happily exist. Perhaps it should be no surprise, then, that these tableau-focused scenes are the more successful efforts from Chew-Bose than her handling and updated reimagining of the narrative from Françoise Sagan’s 1954 novel of the same name, a sensation that Otto Preminger adapted into a thorny triumph of his own in 1958. It’s not that Chew-Bose doesn’t understand the story, but that her ideal execution of its modern retelling is tripped up by a profound uncertainty regarding what Sagan’s text would look like in these times.

Fans of Call Me By Your Name – both Andre Aciman’s novel from 2007 and Luca Guadagnino’s 2017 film adaptation – are likely to feel right at home with Bonjour Tristesse, at least from an aesthetic standpoint, and especially in the beginning stages when the film’s more elaborate ideas have yet to rear their heads. Shots of grapefruit slices and swimsuit-clad teens pepper its early frames, with Cécile and Cyril, her boyfriend for the summer, played by Aliocha Schneider from Angela Schanelec’s Music, enjoying short, sweet makeout sessions in many of them. Prior to one, she traces her middle name on his back, giving him the opportunity to learn it should he identify the letters that form it; when he can’t, she refuses to tell him what he’s missed. Cécile operates on the surface with most people, safely wading in the dangerous waters of relationships by remaining in shallow pools rather than venturing too far into unfamiliar depths. 

The only person who truly knows her ins and outs is Raymond (Claes Bang), her wealthy widower father, whose latest girlfriend, Elsa (Naïlia Harzoune), has joined them for the summer. Elsa believes she understands Cécile, but misses plenty due to her inability to see her as anything beyond the prototypical young woman. It’s only after Anne (Chloë Sevigny), her late mother’s closest friend, arrives at their summer home that we begin to understand why Elsa’s assessment came up short, as more is revealed about Cécile’s darker capabilities and urges, as well as the toxic, codependent nature of her relationship with her father. It all makes for one hell of a summer, with the idyllic, thoughtless nature of a family vacation swiftly turning into an extravagant sociological nightmare of manipulation, only sleeker.

At least that’s what Chew-Bose seems to be going for, a method that affords Bonjour Tristesse the quality of never being uninteresting. Regrettably, it never warrants much interrogation, either. The luscious textures and well-framed photography by the German cinematographer Maximilian Pittner are worth writing home about – who has an appreciation for two shots that place one character in the foreground and one just behind them, unable to see their expressions – but unlike in other European-set melodramas where romantic intrigue and violent impulses go together hand in hand, there’s a fundamental imbalance to Chew-Bose’s work here, her narrative flowing more like an unspooled yarn of scattered ideas than a literary adaptation where those ideas have already been formed for the filmmaker to then meddle with. As Cyril says while he and Cécile lounge on the rocks after a swim, “You’re so frustrating. It’s like you’re reckless and careful. Which usually means the recklessness doesn’t come naturally.”

Cécile’s caution manifests most deeply in her fear of getting too close to anyone but Raymond, one of her defining characteristics in every version of Bonjour Tristesse, but in Chew-Bose’s adaptation, their connection feels less obsessive than in the tale’s previous iterations, and thus toothless by comparison. Sagan’s novel partially reached its level of acclaim because of its author’s age – she was 18 at the time of writing and detailed intense connections between family members and partners with both ferocity and ire – while Preminger’s 1958 film was serene and twisted in equal measure, depending on how deeply you peered. In attempting to split the difference between the severity of Sagan’s prose and the composure of Preminger’s filmmaking, the spice that would make you devour what Chew-Bose is serving has been left out of the recipe.

You see Raymond becoming more fascinated with Anne as her presence in their home lingers, and you see (and hear) Cécile’s frustration burgeoning as the attention once reserved for her lands on an older, maternal figure. But threats must be more than meets the eye to be more than something tactile and physical. Stories like Bonjour Tristesse are not unfamiliar – one’s mind may wander to Gia Coppola’s Somewhere – but the more probing they are, the more willing to bite we may be. As luxurious as Chew-Bose’s adaptation is from a visual standpoint, it rarely delves past the beautiful surface it fashions for itself through its undeniable scenery and the beautiful faces it captures. Much like one of Elsa’s early observations of Cécile, it’s an easy film to look at, but one that makes itself hard to be truly seen.

Bonjour Tristesse is currently playing in select theaters courtesy of Greenwich Entertainment.