Bonjour Tristesse

Chew-Bose makes the daring choice to extend the story beyond the novel and it gives her one of the film’s best episodes, chilling in its revelation of the emotional fallout of Cecile’s actions.

It’s a bold project for a first-time feature film, and I applaud writer-director Durga Chew-Bose for the attempt, even if I find the execution a bit lacking.

While remakes can feel, by their very nature, like the worst kind of retread, Chew-Bose’s directorial debut is a sharp offering that adds to the mystique of the original material and makes a strong case for its own existence.

Chew-Bose does not rest on the ease of her scenery. There is a formal confidence, exciting from a first-time filmmaker, a deep understanding of cinema as a craft and all it can accomplish beyond the page.


It’s all so wispy -- and so weirdly miscast -- that the new film will do the rounds, find a few admirers and then fade to obscurity, doing little to supplant Preminger’s version.

In Chew-Bose's hand, this sun-drenched, French Riviera set fairy-tale-gone-wrong plays out like an elegant chamber piece, beautifully shot by Maximilian Pittner. She concentrates on the tender father-daughter relationship with a hint of sadness.

It’s a respectable debut from Chew-Bose and a handsomely crafted one, but it never quite justifies its own existence in the shadow of both the novel and the 1958 film.

The film’s two hours float by like a boat on the Riviera waters – languorous with a delicious sprinkling of lingering disquietude. Oh, such beautiful, privileged indolence: j’ai la flemme.

For a film with such a powerful emotional undercurrent, it stays incredibly quiet for most of its runtime.

The latest version of Bonjour Tristesse just feels like the '58 film only with a modern setting.