goodbye first love movie review

Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, black writers week, first love can be tragic.

Now streaming on:

It is Camille's first love but it may not be Sullivan's. She is awash in it, consumed by it, made joyful. It is the center of her being. She is 15. Sullivan is 19, and yes, he loves her very much, but there is another part to him, elusive even to himself. It is far too simple to say he has trouble committing to her. His trouble is fully understanding his own desires.

Their parents know of their love and respect it. It is accepted as a natural part of growing up. Camille's parents are benign, cautioning her only against obsession. But obsession is very much where she is. She has never felt love before and is sure she never will again.

They go away alone for an idyllic holiday in her family's country cottage, near a little river in a pastoral setting. The sun dapples the water, the trees, the flowers and their faces. I'm reminded of " Elvira Madigan ." Then, incredibly, it emerges that Sullivan ( Sebastian Urzendowsky ) has no plans to go back to school. He will leave with some friends for 10 months to backpack through South America. Then he will return, and they will resume.

This is never deeply discussed. It is a given. His planning must have started some time ago, while his romance with Camille ( Lola Creton ) was still forming. She is shattered. Of course she is. I believe the movie is too easy on him, the egotistical pig, who thinks the world revolves around him. Yes, by all means, backpack through the Andes. But don't do it while talking with this young flower about how you will spend your lifetimes forever.

"Goodbye First Love" is the third feature by Mia Hansen-Løve, herself only 31, whose previous film was the perceptive "Father of My Children" (2009), about a film producer whose sudden death exposes the fragile nature of his business dealings. There, too, we see the pattern of a man excluding a loved one (in this case, his wife) from his planning.

This film spans about eight years and focuses on Camille; Sullivan's travels in South America are represented by stickpins on a map; the day arrives when his letters stop, and Camille pulls the pins out of the map and puts them back in their box. She goes to architecture school, takes her professor as her mentor and then lover. This is Lorenz ( Magne-Havard Brekke ), a Dane whose lanky hair falls in disdain over his face, but who is older, more stable, responsible. They are in love in terms of their relationship, but there's no fire in her heart.

What has happened to Sullivan? When we find out, we couldn't be more astonished. Camille's reaction should be livid rage. This stupid man has not valued her love. He is irresponsible and careless. And of course then he expects to be understood and forgiven.

"Goodbye First Love" is fascinating. I've withheld a lot of information from you. I wonder exactly what Hansen-Løve means by it. It seems to me that a great deal more anger and contempt would be appropriate toward Sullivan — if not from Camille, then from the film. At the same time, Camille herself is a suitable case for study. Love is one thing. Even first love. But her love is so extreme and durable, it qualifies as a psychiatric condition. If Sullivan were afraid of her intensity, we might understand the trip to Peru. But the suspicion remains that he never fully comprehends its depth.

We think of first love as sweet and valuable, a blessed if hazardous condition. This film, deeper than it seems, dares to suggest that beyond a certain point, it can represent a tragedy.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

Now playing

Glenn Kenny

Ultraman: Rising

Simon abrams.

Bad Behaviour

Sheila o'malley.

A Quiet Place: Day One

Brian tallerico.

Film Credits

Goodbye First Love (2012)

110 minutes

Lola Creton as Camille

Sebastian Urzendowsky as Sullivan

Magne-Havard Brekke as Lorenz

Written and Directed by

• Mia Hansen-Love

Latest blog posts

The Forrest Gump Soundtrack Hits Different in the Spotify Era

The Man Behind the Curtain: Robert Towne (1934-2024)

Female Filmmakers In Focus: Agnieszka Holland

The Artful Tenderness of A Quiet Place: Day One

• Skip to main content
• Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

'Goodbye First Love': Heartbreak, Recovery, Relapse

Scott Tobias

Camille (Lola Creton) and Sullivan (Sebastian Urzendowsky) are caught in a complicated tangle of feelings in Mia Hansen-Love's Goodbye First Love. Carole Bethuel/IFC Films hide caption

Goodbye First Love

• Director: Mia Hansen-Love
• Genre: Drama
• Running Time: 110 minutes

With: Lola Creton, Sebastian Urzendowsky, Magne-Havard Brekke

In French, German, Danish with subtitles

(Recommended)

Watch Clips

'All I Care About'

Credit: IFC Films

'Everything'

There's nothing like the intensity of young love, but that descriptor cuts in many ways at once. Feelings so pure and intoxicating can never be repeated, but they cannot be controlled, either, by the wisdom and maturity that enrich and sustain a relationship in the long term. Intensity can curdle just as quickly into jealousy, possessiveness and depression; when a heartsick teenager uses a phrase like "I'll die without him," adults may roll their eyes, but it's just barely a figure of speech.

Goodbye First Love , the subtle and perceptive new film by French writer-director Mia Hansen-Love, tests just such a relationship against the passage of time. What happens to love when two people who fell for each other as impetuous teenagers meet again years later, after their wounds have calloused over and they have a little more experience?

Have they really changed? Or do those old feelings come burbling up to the surface again, despite all rational effort to tamp them down? Hansen-Love offers complicated answers to those questions, and they never seem precooked — she has an intuitive touch that's in keeping with characters who act on impulse.

When we first meet Camille (Lola Creton) and Sullivan (Sebastian Urzendowsky) in Paris 1999, they're already headed for a tailspin, but they cling hard to each other as the plane's going down. For 15-year-old Camille, no amount of time with Sullivan is too much, and the only thing worse than not seeing him is all the fighting they do over his callousness or her suffocating affection.

When they take a romantic sojourn to Ardeche, the older Sullivan startles Camille with the news that he and a buddy are planning a 10-month tour of South America. He promises they'll pick right up again when he gets back. A few months after his arrival in Caracas, though, his letters start to taper off.

Cut to 2003, when the film finds Camille still shaken but coming into her own as a promising architecture student. She can't bring herself to follow through on a one-night-stand with a like-aged club kid, but she slips into a relationship with a newly divorced professor, Lorenz (Magne-Havard Brekke), that's not as predatory as it sounds.

Camille learns to love someone in a different way, and sees the value of stability and adulthood. Then Sullivan turns up in Paris a few years later, seeming completely unchanged, and throws her well-ordered life for a loop.

Much like Hansen-Love's previous effort — the equally fine The Father of My Children -- Goodbye First Love hangs a wealth of small observational moments on a structure so firm that a curtain could drop between acts. The Father of My Children was cleaved almost precisely in half, between the events leading up to a film producer's suicide and the toll it registers on the people who loved him; Goodbye First Love unfolds in thirds, with Camille's time in architecture school serving as a quiet bridge between her tempestuous sessions with Sullivan.

This middle section is key. As Sullivan zips off to South America, Hansen-Love stays close to Camille and watches her struggle to pick up the pieces — a growth process that's exceedingly fragile and prone to regression. Lovely touches abound, like the map of South America Camille posts on her bedroom wall right after Sullivan leaves for his trip. She follows his progress pin by pin as he winds his way west and then south through Chile; the pins end when the letters stop coming, and she eventually just folds it up. Life moves on.

Or does it? Goodbye First Love is about emotions that linger and assert themselves against our better judgment. There are times when the title is more a wish than an action — because just as cocaine addicts are forever chasing that first high, there's always the hunger to recapture a lost feeling again, even for those who have spent years in recovery. Pity those who fall off the wagon. (Recommended)

Advertisement

Supported by

Movie Review

Trailing Her Heart, Pushpin by Pushpin

• Share full article

By A. O. SCOTT

• April 19, 2012

The French title of Mia Hansen-Love’s new film is “Un Amour de Jeunesse.” A straightforward (if somewhat generic) translation might have been “Young Love,” but the English version, “Goodbye First Love,” is an improvement. The movie, Ms. Hansen-Love’s third feature (after “All Is Forgiven” and “The Father of My Children” ), endows each word of that title with equal weight. It examines, with compassion and clarity, a young woman’s discovery of passion and also of the pain, disappointment and partial wisdom that follow.

“It’s because I’m melancholic,” Camille (Lola Créton) says to her mother (Valérie Bonneton), explaining the voluptuous, romantic sadness she wears like a carefully chosen shawl. At 15, Camille is prone to such self-dramatizing statements, especially where her boyfriend, Sullivan (Sebastian Urzendowsky), is concerned.

“He’s the man of my life,” she tells her mother, and her words to him are even more categorical: “I’ll die without you.” This makes Sullivan uncomfortable. Though he is devoted to Camille, there are other aspects of life he wants to embrace with at least equal ardor.

When Sullivan, who is a few years older than Camille, drops out of school to take a journey of self-discovery across South America, it is the tragedy of her life. She traces his itinerary with pins on a map hung on her bedroom wall, and reads his letters through tears. But at the same time, almost unconsciously, she steps toward a more independent future, working hard in school and discovering the ambition to be an architect.

Her story stretches out over eight years, through changes in mood and hairstyle, skipping over some important events that are illuminated retrospectively. To say too much about what happens — between Camille’s parents, between her and her Norwegian mentor (Magne-Havard Brekke) — would not be to spoil the plot so much as to disrespect the film’s wonderfully fresh and surprising rhythm.

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and  log into  your Times account, or  subscribe  for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber?  Log in .

Want all of The Times?  Subscribe .

The Definitive Voice of Entertainment News

Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood Reporter

site categories

Goodbye first love (un amour de jeunesse): film review.

Writer-director Mia Hansen-Love spins a decade-spanning romantic drama that stars Lola Creton, Sebastian Urzendowsky and Magne-Harvard Brekke.

By Jordan Mintzer

Jordan Mintzer

• Share on Facebook
• Share to Flipboard
• Send an Email
• Show additional share options
• Share on LinkedIn
• Share on Pinterest
• Share on Reddit
• Share on Tumblr
• Share on Whats App
• Print the Article
• Post a Comment

PARIS — Rising auteur Mia Hansen-Love ( Father of My Children ) delivers another smoothly helmed slice of Gallic life in the decade-spanning romantic drama, Goodbye First Love ( Un amour de jeunesse ). Starring talented 17-year-old actress Lola Creton as a young woman who finds that saying goodbye to a first love is much easier said than done, the film offers up the sort of casual, insightful and at times sexually candid storytelling that, if it wasn’t necessarily invented in France, has definitely become one the nation’s more prized genres. Following an international premiere at Locarno, arthouse audiences could drink this down like a glass of Chardonnay.

Related Stories

Bbc acquires french thriller 'sambre - anatomy of a crime', based on true story of prolific rapist, clive owen on picking roles "that scare me a little bit" and being keen on a "really good comedy".

Cutting straight to the chase, Love kicks off with the humble and handsome Sylvain ( Sebastian Urzendowsky ) riding his bike through Paris, stopping to buy some condoms, and then heading over to the apartment of 15-year-old Camille (Creton, terrific), who welcomes him with open arms and no clothes. However, what looks to be the ideal premier amour is soon complicated by Sylvain’s plans to backpack around South America, leaving Camille behind to suffer the kind of end-of-the-world breakup that plenty of adolescents experience.

The Bottom Line An airy yet incisive third feature from French auteur Mia Hansen-Love.

If the plot could have been stolen from the Sweet Valley High series, the 30-year-old Hansen-Love (here in her third feature outing) has such a frank and carefree way of presenting things that they rarely appear as the clichés they may very well be. Jumping ahead in time with the ease of an Olympic hurdler, she follows Camille’s gradual rise from lovesick tween to budding young professional, providing only the most essential details, and showing the progression of years via clever inserts and changing climates.

When Camille finally climbs out of her slump to become a serious architecture student, she begins a long and fruitful affair with her significantly older professor, Lorenz ( Magne-Havard Brekke , compelling). At this point the story digresses to follow the two as they tour various landmarks of European Modernism, allowing the Franco-German co-production to cross over the Rhine, and DP Stephane Fontaine ( A Prophet ) to showcase his sun-drenched cinematography while capturing the best of the Bauhaus movement.

Despite such diversions – and there are a few in a narrative that seems a bit stretched at 110 minutes – Hansen-Love never loses sight of how deeply Camille was affected by her teenage fling, which comes back to bite her when Sylvain resurfaces. If all the pubescent nudity and frolicking are nothing new in local films (Sylvain’s joke to Camille that he’s going to “rape her” is one of those dialogues that only the French could get away with…though maybe not in court), the writer-director reveals an empathy towards her characters that makes her work seem anything but exploitative.

Though it’s ultimately more lightweight than both All is Forgiven and Father of My Children , Goodbye First Love – whose subtler original-language title translates to A Young Love – shows how well Hansen-Love can provide the type of sensitive, seemingly nonchalant filmmaking that was perfected by the late Eric Rohmer. As if well aware that some may criticize what’s clearly a very French way of doing things, she includes a late scene where Sylvain complains about having watched a movie that’s way too “chatty and complacent.” Thankfully, she’s done much better.

Opens: In France July 6 Production companies: Les Films Pelleas, Razor Film, Arte France Cinema, Rhone-Alpes Cinema, WDR/Arte, Jouror Productions Cast: Lola Creton, Sebastian Urzendowsky, Magne-Havard Brekke, Valerie Bonneton, Serge Renko, Ozay Fecht Director/screenwriter: Mia Hansen-Love Producers: Philippe Martin, David Thion Director of photography: Stephane Fontaine Production designers: Mathieu Menut, Charlotte de Cadeville Costume designer: Bethasbee Drefyus Editor: Marion Monnier Sales Agent: Films Distribution No rating, 110 minutes

THR Newsletters

Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day

More from The Hollywood Reporter

Penn badgley, brittany snow have “gotten no call” for ‘john tucker must die’ sequel reportedly in the works, ‘despicable me 4’ director on spoofing superheroes, gentleminions and those crowd-pleasing cameos, ‘cabo negro’ review: a wispy, morocco-set tale of youth, sex and boredom, box office: ‘despicable me 4’ heads for sparkly $120m july 4 opening, ‘inside out 2’ crosses $500m in u.s., daniel brühl on his role in hbo’s ‘the franchise,’ a horror movie idea, and embracing his midlife crisis, lego unveils ‘jaws’ set timed for summer season.

• Entertainment

‘Goodbye First Love’: Memory fuels tale of dead-end passion

A movie review of "Goodbye First Love," Mia Hansen-Løve's smart and stirring drama about both the grip and importance of memory. The film, which touchingly evokes the fresh sense of discovery in the French New Wave, follows two former lovers who meet again in Paris.

Share story

There’s a wonderful moment in the savvy, melancholy “Goodbye First Love” that literally captures the experience of reconnecting with someone special you haven’t seen for many years, picking up exactly where you left off.

Camille (Lola Créton), mid-20s, is walking in Paris one evening on her way to meet Sullivan (Sebastian Urzendowsky), a former lover who left her when she was 15. Spotting Camille, Sullivan catches up to her on his bicycle. They don’t stop, don’t hug. They just keep traveling along together, as they once did.

Sullivan and Camille may not stand still, but time does whenever they are together. Yet their romantic chemistry is one thing while the reality of their mismatched lives is something else. Written and directed by Mia Hansen-Løve with a deliberate, touching evocation of the French New Wave, “Goodbye First Love” is about dead-end passion as both a sign of life and an obstacle to happiness.

Hansen-Løve introduces the characters as kids, shortly before a restless Sullivan departs France, leaving Camille suicidal. They spend their final days together in a languorous haze, interrupted by recriminations.

Most Read Entertainment Stories

• Fourth of July fireworks, parades in Seattle and beyond for 2024
• Museum of Illusions opens in Seattle. Here's what it's like
• 10 things to do over the Fourth of July weekend around Seattle
• Kidnapping of California woman that police called a hoax gets new attention with Netflix documentary
• Ann Wilson announces cancer diagnosis, postpones Heart tour VIEW

It’s a miserable time, yet Hansen-Løve films with an eye toward discovering and rediscovering these characters in pure moments of simple, poignant humanity — wading in a river, clambering over rocks.

Her expressive, moody images hearken to an older, icon-rich era in European film, stirring old movie memories for us while creating painful, personal ones for Camille, who will struggle with their meaning when she meets Sullivan again.

Memory is the engine of “Goodbye First Love.” The film’s second act, in fact, spanning years in which Camille grows into a young architect, explores the idea that new buildings must always capture something of remembrance. That is Hansen-Løve’s point with this fine movie as well.

Tom Keogh: [email protected]

Goodbye First Love

An all-consuming first love haunts the heart of a young French girl for the good part of decade in "Goodbye First Love," the deeply satisfying third feature of Gallic scribe-helmer Mia Hansen-Love ("All Is Forgiven," "Father of My Children").

By Boyd van Hoeij

Boyd van Hoeij

• Jean Rochefort Dies: French Actor Was Famously to Appear in ‘Don Quixote’ 7 years ago
• Emmanuelle Riva, Star of ‘Amour,’ ‘Hiroshima Mon Amour,’ Dies at 89 7 years ago
• Jacques Rivette, Cerebral French New Wave Director, Dies at 87 8 years ago

An all-consuming first love haunts the heart of a young French girl for the good part of decade in “ Goodbye First Love ,” the deeply satisfying third feature of Gallic scribe-helmer Mia Hansen-Love (“All Is Forgiven,” “Father of My Children”). Achieving an emotional honesty on par with that of her first two features, which also dealt with love, loss and the passage of time, the present pic, filmed with supreme confidence, offers another unapologetically sentimental story stripped to its emotional core. International debut at Locarno should generate solid sales for this impressive, and very French, post-New Wave gem.

Related Stories

How gen ai will change 16 film & tv production jobs: vip+/harrisx survey data, martin scorsese and robert de niro go deep: the pair reflect on meeting via brian de palma, how their partnership thrives and paying the mob to make 'mean streets'.

Like Hansen-Love’s previous pics, “Goodbye” is divided into several parts, and again suggests that what’s important in a life — or, for that matter, a film, what gives it its energy and deeply felt pockets of emotion — can’t be reduced to any single instant or image, but instead lies in the consideration (and careful juxtaposition) of these instants.

Popular on Variety

In 1999, Camille (Lola Creton) is 15 years old and head-over-heels in love and lust with Sullivan (Sebastian Urzendowsky), a brooding, husky-voiced boy four years her senior. Too young to be jaded or even realistic about love, the long-haired, open-faced Camille takes her first relationship extremely seriously. But the young couple’s trip to the Ardeche area, which starts off as a languid pastoral, is slowly poisoned by the knowledge that Sullivan has decided to leave for a 10-month tour of South America shortly thereafter.

The film’s tone is close to Camille’s way of first experiencing love and longing. Lines such as “I’ve been waiting for you all my life,” delivered with a straight face, underline how serious and all-consuming a first love can be. Thankfully, Hansen-Love tempers most scenes with a simple reliance on direct sound, with a few low-key, retro-sounding songs used only sparingly.

Sullivan, who has commitment issues, breaks off their relationship from afar. Pic then briefly depicts a breakdown in 2000 before jumping to Camille’s life as an architecture student in 2003, her pixie haircut an effective indication she’s moved on, though an early encounter with a guy she takes home, only to tell him he can’t touch her, indicates she’s still not entirely over Sullivan.

On an architecture trip to Denmark, Camille slowly falls for her eloquent Danish professor, Lorenz (Magne-Havard Brekke). In many ways, he offers her what Sullivan couldn’t: stability and a future. But theirs is a rapport constructed on reason more than passion, and when Sullivan reappears a few years later, Camille finds herself caught between two extremes.

Hansen-Love’s narrative gently teases out the differences between the men, which are not only expressed in obvious contrasts (younger/older, country/city), but also in the way the director handles the soundtrack and especially the camera, favoring a looser, almost invisible approach for Sullivan and more calculated movements and framing for the professor).

Though the two men are filtered through Camille’s sensibility, the scribe-helmer ensures they are portrayed as individuals rather than abstract opposites. Nuanced perfs from dark, curly-haired German thesp Urzendowsky (“The Way Back”) and his blond, straight-haired Norwegian colleague, Brekke (“Father of My Children”), further move the men away from simple outlines. Caught between them, 19-year-old Creton (“Blue Beard”) steals the show in a role that requires her to continually suggest conflicting emotions, often without resorting to explanatory dialogue. Impact is quietly devastating.

Emotionally and, to an extent, technically, the pic recalls the films of Truffaut and France’s first post-New Wave helmer, Jean Eustache, neither one afraid to tackle complex human sentiments. But considering Hansen-Love’s small but surprisingly consistent oeuvre, and the ease with which she uses the filmmaking tools at her disposal, it’s safe to say she is an auteur in her own right.

France-Germany

• Production: A Les films du Losange (in France) release of a Les films Pelleas, Razor Film presentation and production, in association with Arte France Cinema, Rhone-Alpes Cinema, WDR, Arte, Jouror Prods., with the participation of Canal Plus, Cinecinema. (International sales: Films Distribution, Paris.) Produced by Philippe Martin, David Thion. Co-producers, Roman Paul, Gerhard Meixner. Directed, written by Mia Hansen-Love.
• Crew: Camera (color), Stephane Fontaine; editor, Marion Monnier; production designers, Mathieu Menut, Charlotte de Cadeville; costume designer, Bethsabee Dreyfus; sound (Dolby Digital), Vincent Vatoux, Olivier Goinard; associate producer, Geraldine Michelot; assistant directors, Juliette Maillard, Luc Bricault; casting, Elsa Pharaon, Antoinette Boulat. Reviewed at Cameo Ariel, Metz, France, July 15, 2011. (In Locarno Film Festival -- competing.) Running time: 108 MIN.
• With: With: Lola Creton, Sebastian Urzendowsky, Magne-Havard Brekke, Valerie Bonneton, Serge Renko, Ozay Fecht. (French, Danish, German dialogue)

More from Variety

Tom hanks and robin wright are de-aged by decades in ‘here’ first look photos; robert zemeckis reveals the camera never moves in 104-minute film, regulators shouldn’t blow the whistle on venu sports just yet, ‘here’ trailer: tom hanks and robin wright get de-aged and play teenagers to 80-year-olds in ‘forrest gump’ reunion with robert zemeckis, car buyers want more screens as in-vehicle entertainment rises, more from our brands, god bless america, willie nelson’s back onstage for 4th of july concert, wagyu steak, candy rooms and private clubs: inside the hidden world of vip perks at nba arenas, patrick bertoletti wins nathan’s annual hot dog eating contest, the best loofahs and body scrubbers, according to dermatologists, nathan’s famous hot dog eating contest: who won the annual fourth of july binge-a-thon (watch video), verify it's you, please log in.

Goodbye First Love Review

04 May 2012

111 minutes

Goodbye First Love

Mia Hansen-Løve builds upon the excellent impression made with Father Of My Children with this exquisite study of love, loss and healing. Carrying echoes of François Truffaut, Eric Rohmer and the underrated Jean Eustache, this is the kind of sentimental education for which French cinema was invented. Following Lola Créton over a decade from her teenage crush on Sebastian Urzendowsky to a more mature romance with architecture professor Magne-Håvard Brekke, the story is constructed from subtly conveyed details that emphasise the simple human truths in what otherwise might be mistaken for clichés. The performances are similarly understated, with Créton poignantly capturing the pain of rejection and lost trust, while Hansen-Løve adroitly uses Stéphane Fontaine’s camera to stress the contrasts between her beaux. Quite charming.

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Trouble logging in?

By continuing, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes.

Email not verified

Let's keep in touch.

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

• Upcoming Movies and TV shows
• Rotten Tomatoes Podcast
• Media News + More

By clicking "Sign Me Up," you are agreeing to receive occasional emails and communications from Fandango Media (Fandango, Vudu, and Rotten Tomatoes) and consenting to Fandango's Privacy Policy and Terms and Policies . Please allow 10 business days for your account to reflect your preferences.

OK, got it!

• What's the Tomatometer®?
• Login/signup

Movies in theaters

• Opening this week
• Top box office
• Coming soon to theaters
• Certified fresh movies

Movies at home

• Fandango at Home
• Prime Video
• Most popular streaming movies
• What to Watch New

Certified fresh picks

• A Quiet Place: Day One Link to A Quiet Place: Day One
• MaXXXine Link to MaXXXine
• Kill Link to Kill

New TV Tonight

• Star Trek: Prodigy: Season 2
• Grace: Season 4
• Down in the Valley: Season 1
• The Great Food Truck Race: Season 17
• SPRINT: Season 1

Most Popular TV on RT

• Star Wars: The Acolyte: Season 1
• Supacell: Season 1
• The Bear: Season 3
• The Boys: Season 4
• My Lady Jane: Season 1
• Presumed Innocent: Season 1
• House of the Dragon: Season 2
• Dark Matter: Season 1
• Eric: Season 1
• Best TV Shows
• Most Popular TV
• TV & Streaming News

Certified fresh pick

• My Lady Jane: Season 1 Link to My Lady Jane: Season 1
• All-Time Lists
• Binge Guide
• Comics on TV
• Five Favorite Films
• Video Interviews
• Weekend Box Office
• Weekly Ketchup
• What to Watch

25 Most Popular TV Shows Right Now: What to Watch on Streaming

Movies To Watch July 4th Weekend

What to Watch: In Theaters and On Streaming

4 TV and Streaming Shows You Should Binge-Watch in July

Mission: Impossible 8 : Release Date, Story, Cast & More

• Trending on RT
• 2024's Best Movies
• New On Streaming
• July's Anticipated Movies
• Free Movies

Goodbye First Love Reviews

The frank, direct, attentive, and well-meaning way in which the characters are observed makes a sharp complexity spring from the narrative flow.

Full Review | Jun 6, 2022

With expert command of nuanced images, a haunting soundtrack, and an engaging performance from her lead character, Hansen-Love has made a compelling and melancholy film about the contradictory power of love.

Full Review | Jul 9, 2019

Relying on a mixture of rich, pastel-shaded imagery and organic symbolism, Goodbye First Love is full of complex scenes which burn on a translucent fuel of hidden meanings.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 8, 2019

Effectively extends the range of one of France's most notable young directors - besides reminding those of us who once suffered the pangs of teenage love that we're very well out of it.

Full Review | Jul 6, 2018

This film conveys the impermanence of youth by playing up another basic fact that movies take for granted: that the images you see in a theater are constantly disappearing before your eyes.

Full Review | Jan 9, 2018

Love hurts. Especially when you're 15.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Jul 27, 2012

"Goodbye First Love" is fascinating.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 28, 2012

Hansen-Lve films with an eye toward discovering and rediscovering these characters in pure moments of simple, poignant humanity - wading in a river, clambering over rocks.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 14, 2012

I can respect the director for the effort, but it felt too much like a self important student film.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 7, 2012

The first half, with its woozy romanticism, is spectacular, but it begins to lose its way.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 7, 2012

"Goodbye First Love" is like a postcard from a lost Eden, a painfully pure oasis where we're not allowed to linger.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | May 25, 2012

Writer-director, Mia Hansen-Lve, whose third feature this is, has addressed her subject with complete emotional confidence.

Full Review | May 11, 2012

The autobiographical third feature from French director Mia Hansen-Lve limns the ecstasy and tumult of youthful, sometimes self-destructive passion.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | May 10, 2012

This is an easy movie to spoil. It's rather plotless. But things happen in precisely the way that life happens.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | May 10, 2012

It's as precise and ultimately as undefined as life itself.

Full Review | May 5, 2012

At once a paean and a eulogy to that unforgettable first love, Mia Hansen-Lve's latest feature is a refreshingly frank look at young adult relationships.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | May 5, 2012

Hansen-Lve deftly captures all the emotions of a time when the shortest separation feels like an eternity and the slightest misunderstanding a calamity.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | May 4, 2012

The young stars may irritate as many viewers as they delight, but their rather stroppy chemistry is convincing and memorable.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | May 3, 2012

Crton has the doe-like Rohmer face, and Hansen-Lve has the cool Rohmer touch - the one that lends grandeur to tales of middle-class Parisian heartache.

A small, sweet film that tells an old story with some new twists.

Full Review | Original Score: 7.3/10 | May 3, 2012

Why is Christian Science in our name?

Our name is about honesty. The Monitor is owned by The Christian Science Church, and we’ve always been transparent about that.

The Church publishes the Monitor because it sees good journalism as vital to progress in the world. Since 1908, we’ve aimed “to injure no man, but to bless all mankind,” as our founder, Mary Baker Eddy, put it.

Here, you’ll find award-winning journalism not driven by commercial influences – a news organization that takes seriously its mission to uplift the world by seeking solutions and finding reasons for credible hope.

Your subscription makes our work possible.

We want to bridge divides to reach everyone.

Deepen your worldview with Monitor Highlights.

Already a subscriber? Log in to hide ads .

Select free newsletters:

A thoughtfully curated selection of our most popular news stories and podcasts.

Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday

Hear about special editorial projects, new product information, and upcoming events.

An update on major political events, candidates, and parties twice a week.

Twice a Week

Stay informed about the latest scientific discoveries & breakthroughs.

Every Tuesday

A weekly digest of Monitor views and insightful commentary on major events.

Every Thursday

Latest book reviews, author interviews, and reading trends.

Every Friday

A weekly update on music, movies, cultural trends, and education solutions.

The three most recent Christian Science articles with a spiritual perspective.

Every Monday

Goodbye First Love: movie review

French indie 'Goodbye First Love' leaves one wondering why she didn't dump the guy earlier.

• By Peter Rainer Film critic

April 20, 2012

"Goodbye First Love," a French film from writer-director Mia Hansen-Løve, is about the first stirrings of romance, and it made me appreciate again the similarly themed and far better American indie "Like Crazy."

Serious-minded 15-year-old Camille (Lola Créton) falls for the older and more footloose Sullivan ( Sebastian Urzendowsky ), who loves her, but loves even more exploring the world on his own. She overcomes her disappointment and finds strength in a new relationship, but, of course, Sullivan is waiting in the wings.

Hansen-Løve wants us to experience all this as a kind of  amour fou,  but all I kept thinking was that Sullivan was a prize jerk and Camille would be well rid of him. Grade: C (Unrated.)

Think you're a film buff? Take our movie trivia quiz!

Help fund Monitor journalism for $11/ month

Already a subscriber? Login

Monitor journalism changes lives because we open that too-small box that most people think they live in. We believe news can and should expand a sense of identity and possibility beyond narrow conventional expectations.

Our work isn't possible without your support.

Unlimited digital access $11/month.

Digital subscription includes:

• Unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.
• CSMonitor.com archive.
• The Monitor Daily email.
• No advertising.
• Cancel anytime.

Related stories

Test your knowledge think you're a film buff take our movie trivia quiz, review norwegian wood: movie review, review we have a pope: movie review, share this article.

Link copied.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

Subscription expired

Your subscription to The Christian Science Monitor has expired. You can renew your subscription or continue to use the site without a subscription.

Return to the free version of the site

If you have questions about your account, please contact customer service or call us at 1-617-450-2300 .

This message will appear once per week unless you renew or log out.

Session expired

Your session to The Christian Science Monitor has expired. We logged you out.

No subscription

You don’t have a Christian Science Monitor subscription yet.

🙌 Awesome, you're subscribed!

Thanks for subscribing! Look out for your first newsletter in your inbox soon!

Get us in your inbox

Sign up to our newsletter for the latest and greatest from your city and beyond

By entering your email address you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy and consent to receive emails from Time Out about news, events, offers and partner promotions.

Awesome, you're subscribed!

The best things in life are free.

Sign up for our email to enjoy your city without spending a thing (as well as some options when you’re feeling flush).

Déjà vu! We already have this email. Try another?

Love the mag?

Our newsletter hand-delivers the best bits to your inbox. Sign up to unlock our digital magazines and also receive the latest news, events, offers and partner promotions.

• Things to Do
• Food & Drink
• Arts & Culture
• Time Out Market
• Coca-Cola Foodmarks
• Los Angeles

• Recommended

Goodbye First Love

Time out says.

So far in her short career, French filmmaker Mia Hansen-Løve has applied an unfussy, warm realism to experiences and memories from her life: she fictionalises existing people and past events to create a shadow of reality. She placed a version of her late producer, Humbert Balsan, at the heart of her second film, ‘The Father of My Children’ (2009), and here she explores her own teen romance for a drama that stretches over a decade in the life of a young woman, Camille, who is something of an alter ego of the filmmaker.

Camille (Lola Créton) develops from being a nervous, paranoid 15-year-old in the throes of first love to a young professional working in the nourishing world of architecture, but who is unable to shake the memory and influence of her first boyfriend, Sullivan ( Sebastian Urzendowsky ). Early scenes show Camille and Sullivan as lovers suffering under the strain of Sullivan’s desire to be a free spirit and Camille’s precocious, claustrophobic belief that ‘he’s the love of my life’. Later, as they part, we observe a slow maturing in Camille as the years pass and she reaches her twenties.

We move from the intensity of first love to absence and attempts to mature, but this is a coming-of-age story that’s as much about the teenager we carry with us as the adult we become when we shed our childish ways. If anything, it suggests that those ways persist and should be taken seriously and not easily or simply dismissed as juvenile or annoying.We see the months and years pass in sly shots of calendars and diaries, although if that makes ‘Goodbye First Love’ sound like a French version of ‘One Day’, it should be said that Hansen-Løve’s style is strictly unmelodramatic and she’s wary of allowing the big events in her characters’ lives to get in the way of a more sideways, fluid study of behaviour and emotion. You imagine that the spirit of Eric Rohmer hangs heavily over her approach to filmmaking.

This avoidance of obvious emotional peaks and troughs stretches into the absence of a score and the presence of a few choice songs on the soundtrack. It can be a challenge to the viewer, and we must allow ourselves to go along with Hansen-Løve’s laidback approach to pacing if we’re to reap the benefits of her anti-sentimental approach to storytelling. ‘Goodbye First Love’ offers a rewarding lesson that life isn’t like a movie and that, when a movie is like life, it can come with life’s banalities and frustrations as well as its surprises and pleasures. Incidentally, this being a French film, we learn too of another obstacle that gets in the way of true love: train strikes.

Release Details

• Release date: Friday 4 May 2012
• Duration: 110 mins

Cast and crew

• Director: Mia Hansen-Løve
• Screenwriter: Mia Hansen-Løve
• Sebastian Urzendowsky
• Magne-Håvard Brekke
• Lola Creton

Been there, done that? Think again, my friend.

Discover Time Out original video

• Press office
• Investor relations
• Work for Time Out
• Editorial guidelines
• Privacy notice
• Do not sell my information
• Cookie policy
• Accessibility statement
• Terms of use
• Modern slavery statement
• Manage cookies
• Advertising

Time Out Worldwide

• All Time Out Locations
• North America
• South America
• South Pacific

‘Goodbye First Love’ Review

• Share on Facebook
• Share on Twitter

Only the French could make a film about debilitating heartbreak and make it all seem so romantic.

'Goodbye First Love', a startlingly accomplished and insightful movie about an idealistic teenage girl's segue into the messy world of adult relationships, makes no bones about exploiting its Frenchness. The beauty of the language, the cities, the countryside, the progressive parents who don't blink when their bra-less daughters go upstairs to have sex at the age of fifteen, the purposeful walks through the Louvre - this is all like a bottomless fudge sundae.

For anyone who lives a full-frontal emotional life (or at least aspires to) this is a universal story. It was the great modern philosopher Albus Dumbledore who sighed, "Ah, to be young and feel love's keen sting."

Young Camille has wavy hair just one humid day away from anarchy and dark, darting eyes betraying her inner anxiety. She has but one focus in life, to maintain her love affair with the two-years-her-senior Sullivan. Sullivan, however, is planning a lengthy tour through South America with friends, and while he protests that he intends to remain true, her paranoia is not unfounded.

The build-up to Sullivan's departure is slow, and climaxes with the Frenchiest of weekends in a cabin picking berries and making love. Then, disaster. Sullivan leaves and, since the film begins in pre-smart phone 1999 (it's a period piece!) Camille is reliant on letters from across the Atlantic. As Paris gets covered in snow, the letters become less frequent until, alas, our young Camille tries to kill herself.

Director Mia Hanson-Love could have taken a cue from some of the recent glut of unimpressive American indies and called it a day, but as it happens here's where 'Goodbye First Love' is just getting warmed up.

After a dissolve to 2003, we check back in with Camille. Her hair is short, she's wearing brighter colors and is working odd jobs (usher at corporate presentations, cigarette girl at a disco) and studying architecture in college. The young woman has clearly built herself up from scratch, and her passion for design, art and construction is intoxicating.

What follows is an unexpected tangent into the world of architecture, led by Camille's handsome Norwegian professor who kinda looks like Julian Assange. Soon they are in love, then collaborating on major projects and then, of course, Sullivan returns.

Oh! This all seems so dramatic but, I swear, the tone director Mia Hanson-Love goes for is not histrionics, but naturalism. It's like Eric Rohmer, but juicier. The film takes its time, but that's because these feelings are epic. One can watch Camille's actions and think "you dunce! What are you doing?" but that can only be asked by someone who has never experienced a stultifying case of 'l'amour fou'.

I can't recall the last time I've seen a character truly grow on screen. I honestly don't know if actress Lola Creton is 15 or 25. She certainly looks young, but if Hanson-Love's film means anything it's that we're always who we are when we first fall in love.

"Your fantasy version of the world is doomed to failure," Camille is cautioned. And yet, for me at least, Hanson-Love's portrayal of doom is beautiful enough to be its own fantasy.

'Goodbye First Love' opens in select theaters and is available On Demand starting today.

Jordan Hoffman was the movies editor at Hearst Digital’s UGO for four years and currently contributes to SlashFilm, MTV’s NextMovie and StarTrek.com. He’s made two marginally successful independent movies, is a member of the New York Film Critics Online and was named IFC’s Ultimate Film Fanatic of the NorthEast in 2004. Follow him on Twitter at @JHoffman6.

More From ScreenCrush

Goodbye First Love (2011)

• User Reviews

Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews

• User Ratings
• External Reviews
• Metacritic Reviews
• Full Cast and Crew
• Release Dates
• Official Sites
• Company Credits
• Filming & Production
• Technical Specs
• Plot Summary
• Plot Keywords
• Parents Guide

Did You Know?

• Crazy Credits
• Alternate Versions
• Connections
• Soundtracks

Photo & Video

• Photo Gallery
• Trailers and Videos

Related Items

• External Sites

Related lists from IMDb users

Recently Viewed

• Australia edition
• Europe edition
• International edition

Goodbye First Love – review

T he 32-year-old film-maker Mia Hansen-Løve began her career acting, notably for Olivier Assayas, whose partner she became. Then, as a director herself, she impressed audiences deeply with her breakthrough feature Father of My Children , in 2009. Un Amour de Jeunesse is a delicate love story, tender and erotic, and drenched in the idealism and seriousness of its central character, Camille (Lola Créton), looking like a very young Penélope Cruz. It is released here under the English title Goodbye First Love, which I think is slightly wrong, pre-empting audience expectations and misreading the film's ambiguity.

This is a fluent, confident and deeply felt movie: unmistakably, if not exactly nakedly, autobiographical. As ever with this kind of personal work, there is an extra pleasure in pondering how and why the author has rewritten her own life, and if she is in complete conscious control of that process.

What emerges on screen has something of Eric Rohmer in its feeling for the languor and nameless anxiety of the very young: at one stage, Camille and her boyfriend argue amiably about the film they've been to see. He dismisses it as talky and complacent; she thinks it is beautiful and deep. We don't get to find out what the film is. I'm guessing Rohmer's A Winter's Tale .

As a 15-year-old high-school pupil, Camille is having regular sex with a conceited and tousle-haired college student called Sullivan (Sebastian Urzendowsky). She is infatuated with him, and he to some degree with her, but does not quite share the intensity of her commitment, having already explained his settled plans to drop out of university and go on a 10-month backpacking tour of South America with a couple of buddies. Sullivan clearly envisages this trip involving many new kinds of experience, but chastity isn't one of them.

He and Camille have a final idyllic summer together at her family's lakeside house in Ardèche, swimming, lazing around and having sex complicated by the melancholy of imminent parting. Inevitably, calamity ensues: Camille grows up, becomes a brilliant architecture student, and a new relationship with a charismatic professor begins to heal her heartbreak. (As it happens, Hansen-Løve met Assayas, 26 years her senior, after she abandoned her study of drama in Paris and began writing for Cahiers du Cinéma, to which Assayas also contributed.) But then, almost a decade later, Camille runs into Sullivan. Things have changed. Or have they?

What is refreshing about Hansen-Løve's movie is that it doesn't fob its characters or its audiences off with the usual gentle hindsight-condescension about young love or first love. It is a commonplace to think that, oh, if only we could climb into a time machine and travel back to visit our teenage lovelorn selves, sobbing our hearts out in our bedrooms. If only we could hug our former selves and tell them it's all right, and it doesn't matter. Hansen-Løve is telling us something quite different: of course it matters. Heartbroken young love is the most intense kind, perhaps the only authentic kind. And you will never forget it and never entirely get over it.

There is something heartwrenching and abject in Camille's getting a map of South America up on her bedroom wall and putting little pins in it to chart Sullivan's course. He has promised to write to her, but this arrangement gradually, predictably unravels. Hansen-Løve shows the imprisonment and agony of Camille's situation and how her architecture career enunciates her misery: designing student accommodation blocks with impractical water features and misconceived spaces for long, dreamy walks which are all too obviously governed by yearning for that last doomed summer of love. Yet the designs are spare, abstract, desiccated. She has designed herself out of them – designed herself out of her own life.

Well, Hansen-Løve studied film, not architecture, and has dramatically designed herself, or a version of herself, into the action. And what is so persuasive is the way she envisages the pair looking. Another type of director might have emphasised the poignancy of these characters' later selves by giving Camille a different hairstyle and Sullivan a shorter haircut, maybe a beard. But Hansen-Løve keeps them looking exactly the same: the severe bob Camille initially had has long since grown out. They look and behave eerily the same as ever. Perhaps we just don't change.

Nothing is more unreliable, more coloured by how we view our current romantic situation, than the memory of an earlier love. If the film is based on the director's own breakup, was the burden of blame apportioned as it appears to be here? Who knows? The eight years that Camille and Sullivan were apart seems like a long time to them; the drama shrinks it to a single, dramatic heartbeat, and perhaps that is all that it was. The unromantic pain and euphoria of love are instantly revived in this outstanding film.

• World cinema
• Drama films

Comments (…)

Most viewed.

• Critic Reviews
• User Reviews
• Cast & Crew

Letterboxd — Your life in film

Forgotten username or password ?

• Start a new list…
• Add all films to a list…
• Add all films to watchlist

Add to your films…

Press Tab to complete, Enter to create

A moderator has locked this field.

Add to lists

Where to watch

Goodbye first love, un amour de jeunesse.

Directed by Mia Hansen-Løve

A 15-year-old discovers the joys and heartaches of first love with an older teen, but in the ensuing years, cannot seem to move past their breakup.

Lola Créton Sebastian Urzendowsky Valérie Bonneton Magne-Håvard Brekke Serge Renko Özay Fecht Max Ricat Louis Dunbar Philippe Paimblanc Patrice Movermann Arnaud Azoulay Amélie Robin Justine Dhouailly Charlotte Faivre François Buot Elisabeth Guill Marie-Hélène Peyrat Guy-Patrick Sainderichin Grégoire Strecker Jean-Paul Dubois Éric Fraticelli Frédéric Liévain Meinhard St. John

Director Director

Mia Hansen-Løve

Producers Producers

Philippe Martin David Thion Gerhard Meixner Roman Paul Géraldine Michelot Hélène Bastide Lissi Muschol

Writer Writer

Casting casting.

Antoinette Boulat Elsa Pharaon

Editor Editor

Marion Monnier

Cinematography Cinematography

Stéphane Fontaine

Production Design Production Design

Mathieu Menut

Set Decoration Set Decoration

Marguerite Rousseau

Costume Design Costume Design

Bethsabée Dreyfus

Razor Film Produktion Les Films Pelléas Jouror Productions ARTE France Cinéma WDR/Arte Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Cinéma

France Germany

Primary Language

Spoken languages.

English Danish German French

Releases by Date

04 jul 2011, 05 aug 2011, 03 sep 2011, 09 sep 2011, 07 oct 2011, 14 oct 2011, theatrical limited, 20 apr 2012, 06 jul 2011, 22 jun 2012, 27 sep 2012, 04 may 2012, releases by country.

• Premiere Toronto International Film Festival
• Premiere Paris Cinéma
• Theatrical U
• Theatrical 0

Switzerland

• Premiere Locarno Film Festival
• Premiere Telluride Film Festival
• Premiere Chicago International Film Festival
• Premiere New York Film Festival
• Theatrical limited NR

108 mins   More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by Ella Kemp ★★★★

It’s been a few hours since I watched it. It’s been a few years since that was my life too.

At first, it feels a bit trivial and meek. Do people still talk like that? They’re only 15, they’ll get over it. They’ll travel, they’ll forget and they’ll kiss other people. And they do. 

But then something grows. The years go by and when you look up, then down at the page and back up to make sure your earrings are on properly, you’ve grown up. Someone else is checking your smile and you don’t want to be touched in the same way. 

For a while it feels like maybe this is the story that was meant to be told.…

Review by iana ★★★★ 2

a life-changing first love? can’t relate

Review by manilazic ★★★★½ 10

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

A very realistic depiction of the broken heart.

Although her breakup with Sullivan (Sebastian Urzendowsky) arrives only later, Camille (Lola Créton) is unhappy in this relationship from the beginning of GOODBYE FIRST LOVE, when they are still together. Lola Créton's untroubled face and Bressonian acting proves perfectly suited to the expression of the dissatisfaction intertwined with despair and passion that Camille feels for Sullivan. His upcoming departure for a long trip is troubling her, but I understood her agitation as more deeply-seated: in this intense, young relationship, Camille feels what any young girl in her position would feel (in any case, what I felt back then): lucky to have found someone to be close to, scared for the future, yet…

Review by Laura ★★★★½

“places affect me and i need to get a hold on them. i feel like i understand their language. it’s the only thing i could move mountains for.”

pretty sure mia hansen-løve and i share the same heart. all her characters make sense to me; i breathe alongside them, understand their instincts, fall for them. and i can always spot that glimmer.

Review by ˗ˏˋ suspirliam ˊˎ˗ ★★★★★ 2

perfect perfect perfect!!!!!! mia hansen-løve has only been in my life for 24 hours now but that's all it took for me to fall head over heals for her!!! i'm utterly in love with the way that she tells a story, what she shows us and what she leaves hidden. every frame of her work is beautiful and tells its own story, she's an absolute master at her craft. you can tell she pours her heart into her films and i feel every drop of it.

Review by Peter Labuza ★★★½

Movements, gestures, and objects build compositions of raw emotion about the longing pains that strike to the bone. Creton is truly a revelation, and Hansen-Love matches her with her sensually naturalistic yet carefully calculated frames.

Review by Allyson ★★★★

I love movies about heartbreaking first loves, but I ADORE how this one explores what happens after. And just how that first love informs following relationships. From what I can tell, Mia Hansen-Love loves to explore change over time through moments silence and solitude (this is only my second film of hers). I loved how quiet this film was.

Review by samhunter ★★★★ 1

Being deeply seen by another person? In this economy?

Review by Vanina ★★

Really, this girl only exists in relation to the men in her life, which does not sit well with me. As with the director's other film 'l'Avenir' (Thing to Come), I loved the locations, but I found Camille a rather vacant entity. She only ever smiles about two times in the film and while I totally get depression, it is incredibly difficult to see such a passionless character who is supposedly capable of great passion in love and in her chosen profession as an architect (we're told rather than shown). She just looks displeased a lot, even when she's walking around the Bauhaus museum, which I would think is a pretty exciting place.

The guy she puts her life on…

Review by pureaubaby

the final shot, camille bathing in glimmer, baptized by light... another delicately cleansing poem from mia hansen-løve.

Review by Lise ★★½ 3

The first half of Goodbye, First Love was eerily familiar. A 15 year old's love could be so close to obsession as to being indistinguishable from it. Mia Hansen-Løve, writer and director did a fabulous job of showing Camille's all-encompassing love for Sullivan who has a life beyond her, something that she does not comprehend and takes to mean he loves her less than she loves him. Nor does she miss any opportunity to remind him, no, blame him for it. But he has plans, plans that don't involve her. Plans to travel, see the world. She does not.

The problem isn't so much that Camille, played by Lola Créton has no interests as it is that she is of…

Review by maneleeo ★★★★

Do first loves ever go right?

Mia Hansen-Løve you are a fantastic filmmaker.

Mentioned by

Select your preferred backdrop

Select your preferred poster, upgrade to remove ads.

Letterboxd is an independent service created by a small team, and we rely mostly on the support of our members to maintain our site and apps. Please consider upgrading to a Pro account —for less than a couple bucks a month, you’ll get cool additional features like all-time and annual stats pages ( example ), the ability to select (and filter by) your favorite streaming services, and no ads!

Goodbye First Love Review

Limp romance drama has little chemistry between leads..

Share this with family and friends

Over 11,000 hours

• Daily Newsletter

[Review] Goodbye First Love

The subject of one’s first love is a tricky thing to capture on film. There’s a mystical tint to the days, months, or even years that one spends ensconced in the presence of the first person to whom the word “love” first attaches itself in one’s mind. Places, songs, foods, people, ideas… they all become branded with the name of the person we shared them with, and as such become entwined with the emotional attachments as well.

Goodbye First Love  is a film that understands that the concept of a first love is not a simple matter of person and time. It goes far beyond that, and the emotional echoes of those moments will last for long after the relationship itself is over. Love doesn’t die, it just hides and bides its time, waiting for the moment where it can finally remind you of how it felt to be there.

Camille ( Lola Créton ) learns this lesson the hard way, and in doing so imbues the film with both its moral and its heart. At fifteen she is in love with Sullivan ( Sebastian Urzendowsky ) who loves her in return, but lets youthful wanderlust take him to South America at the height of their impassioned triste. They fill what time they have left with a trip to the country and stolen afternoons together. Their happiness is broken now and then by her sorrow at his coming departure, though he promises fealty and loyalty.

That these promises dissolve before long should come as no surprise. Camille attempts to pick up the pieces of her idealized future through architecture and work, passionately pursuing her craft while trying to bury or otherwise forget the past. In these passages, as well as those that precede it showing her halcyon days with Sullivan, the film evinces a deep and nuanced understanding of the push and pull between immediate happiness and the fear and loneliness of gazing toward the future, as well as the sudden desolation of being alone and the paralyzing yearning of something long past. In it’s final act, these deep and sometimes painful realities are even better realized. Writer-director  Mia Hansen-Løve displays a keen awareness of the sort of impact that all of these tensions have on a person, and conveys them beautifully.

Yet, in spite of all the emotional truth and blunt honesty on display, there is something about this film that holds me back from the kind of rapturous response one might expect. These moments seem to come packaged in too much ancillary plot or story. The narrative is not convoluted, just more fatty than one might expect. There are moments that drag and could have been excised without any loss of story impact. At times I wondered if the story knew where it was going, and while the eventual acts and revelations restored my faith in the overall vision, I still cannot shake the feeling that some things were inserted without much thought to necessity in story terms, or their impact on the pace.

That shouldn’t detract potential admirers, however. Movies that understand so innately the way in which our first loves affect and control us are rare, and to find one so well acted and well written is rare. Whatever stumbles this film has in the time in between these greater, more deft segments is more than made up for by those gleaming instances where you flinch because the actuality of life on display is so acute, and so painfully familiar.

Goodbye First Love is now in limited release.

• COMING SOON
• OUT NOW - US
• COMING SOON - US

• COMPETITIONS

Eye For Film >> Movies >> Goodbye First Love (2011) Film Review

Goodbye First Love

Reviewed by: Anne-Katrin Titze

No symbolism, no foreshadowing, no filmic tricks to manipulate the audience into believing sentimental rewriting of personal histories in Goodbye First Love. Mia Hansen-Løve paints a picture of time and adolescent longings in as real a film about first love as it gets.

Paris, February 1999. Sullivan (Sebastian Urzendowsky) rides his bike to visit his girlfriend. He wears a scarf and has it pushed up over his mouth and nose, not because this is a metaphor for something (silence, gangster, etc) but because it is winter and we are in Paris, where it is cold and smoggy on a bike and you want to protect yourself.

As Mies van der Rohe may have said: "God is in the details." Perceptions make this film such a pleasure to watch. Everything feels believable, real, and thought through. When Camille (the lovely Lola Créton, who is still a teenager) threatens her boyfriend: "If you leave me, I'll jump into the Seine", it should be read as such, an expression of how she feels, not a hint at what is about to take place later on. "If you cut your hair, I'll kill you," is the guy's equivalent to her exaggeration. One may want to note though, that in both half-playful verbal threats it is the girl who ends up dead…

Sullivan (who is not completely innocently named, the director told me after the press conference) wants to travel. He drops out of school, and plans a ten-month-long trip to South America with his pals. Camille (not named after the Greta Garbo movie, but because the name is gender neutral in French, and doubles the double Ls from the name Sullivan, I was told) is not invited to come along.

Sullivan has to sell a small painting he inherited from his grandfather to afford the plane ticket. The art dealer he brings it to, tells him it was a fake and offers less money. In a more conventional film, the audience would be told if the dealer is a crook. Not here, just as in real life, we will never know.

Before Sullivan's departure, the young couple spends some time alone in her family's vacation home in the Ardèche. It is summer by now, and the sour cherries are ripe for picking on the trees, the air is calm. Actions show clearly where their conflicted minds are at. When Sullivan goes grocery shopping on his bike, he decides to take a swim in the Loire, forgetting that Camille is waiting, or perhaps provoking her.

In a significant scene that ends their vacation, he cooks for her. He serves her meat with vegetables and he only eats meat. They sit at the ends of a long table, like two children playing king and queen in a castle. He asks if she wanted mustard, she does. They dine, and then she crawls on the bench towards him. Any distance is too much for her.

When he is in South America, she pushes pins into a map, tracing his trip via the letters he sends. She wears his scarf a lot and time passes, and letters come and stop coming. Camille grows up, hair is cut, suddenly Camille's mother (Valérie Bonneton) asks about the father's girlfriend. No exposition is necessary, we find out as an aside that the parents must have got divorced at some point. It is the seasons, the flowers in a vase or the length of hair that give the clues to the passing of time, just how it is done in a good novel. Once in a while, an exact date is inserted, Camille goes to school, studies to become an architect, works at odd jobs.

Hansen-Løve never gives information, she creates a mood and colours a moment. "You take light for granted," says Lorenz, Camille's architecture professor and later lover, to his students. Stage actor Magne Håvard Brekke, already worked with the director in The Father Of My Children (2008), based on the life of late producer Humbert Balsan, and his Lorenz has many nuances "Start from darkness," is good advice.

When Sullivan returns into the narrative, he visits Paris from Marseille. The French title of the film does not include the "goodbye" and the answer to an important riddle can be found in a pile of laundry, folded on a bed in Sullivan's parent's house.

I remarked to Hansen-Løve about her painterly use of colours, specifically the way she positions objects and clothes in reds, blues, and whites. She was happy that I did not mistake it for metaphor, as it is the sensual quality that makes her place a red bikini in front of a bright blue summer sky. She referred to Eric Rohmer , who once said, that every film has a color. "Obviously, this one is red."

At the press conference, the very shy Lola Créton, (who was discovered by Hansen-Løve when she saw her on TV in Catherine Breillat's Blue Beard ) said only one sentence: "Everything happened with softness and care." The actress was dressed all in red.

Director: Mia Hansen-Løve

Writer: Mia Hansen-Løve

Starring: Lola Créton, Sebastian Urzendowsky, Magne-Håvard Brekke, Valérie Bonneton, Serge Renko, Özay Fecht, Max Ricat, Louis Dunbar, Philippe Paimblanc, Patrice Movermann, Arnaud Azoulay, Amélie Robin, Justine Dhouilly, Charlotte Faivre, François Buot

Runtime: 110 minutes

Country: France, Germany

Search database:

Related Articles:

If you like this, try:

• News & Features

• LEGOLANDOFFER 2024 Receive Promo Link with any ticket purchase

Ticket and a Tee Pack!

Get a ticket to see Illumination's Despicable Me 4 in theaters, plus a Team USA Minions T-Shirt.

Special offer.

Buy a ticket to A Quiet Place: Day One on Fandango and get $5 off A Quiet Place 3-Movie Collection Pre-Order

Summer greetings from fandango hot movies, cold sodas, all summer long.

Get double FanRewards Points from Fandango with any ticket purchase made July 1st - July 4th

Offer details.

Be the first to catch the first two episodes of Those About to Die, by signing up for a free advance screening near you!

Join the Frontier Pass for Horizon: An American Saga for new content, deals, and more!

Get deadpool's premium package today.

Get Deadpool's Premium Package - Includes 2 tickets to Deadpool & Wolverine, the Official Best Friends Necklaces, and more

Special event.

Get tickets to see NBC's coverage of the Paris Olympics, broadcasted live in AMC Theatres!

Get tickets to see the 2024 Olympics Opening Ceremony in IMAX Theaters!

Chance to win a universal theme park vacation.

Buy a ticket to Illumination’s Despicable Me 4 for a chance to win a Universal theme park vacation in Hollywood or Orlando

Save $5 on bad boys 4-movie collection.

Buy a ticket to Bad Boys: Ride or Die on Fandango and get $5 off the Bad Boys 4-Movie Collection

Save on select movies and get up to $8.00 towards a movie ticket* to see Despicable Me 4 in theaters.

Fandango offer: gift, give or receive a ticket to the forge.

Buy a ticket for yourself and everyone else you want to share the movie with through The Kingdom Builders Gifted Ticket Program.

Purchase a ticket with Fandango and get one free admission ticket to LEGOLAND® with the purchase of a full-price adult ticket. *Limited time offer. Terms apply.

Not a member? Join now or during checkout - it's free!