Bonjour Tristesse (Blu-ray Review)
- Review Date: Sep 22, 2025
- Format: Blu-ray Disc
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Director
Otto PremingerRelease Date(s)
1958 (August 18, 2025)Studio(s)
Columbia Pictures (Powerhouse Films/Indicator)- Film/Program Grade: A-
- Video Grade: A
- Audio Grade: A
- Extras Grade: A-
Review
[Editor's Note: This is a Region B-locked British Blu-ray import.]
Based on the scandalous 1954 French novel by then 18-year-old Françoise Sagan, Bonjour Tristesse (“Hello, Sadness”), like many of Preminger’s films from the period, pushes the boundaries of censorship, in this case a drama revolving around hedonistic characters engaged in casual sexual affairs, with hints of an incestuous father-daughter relationship. Though a commercial success, critically it was not well-reviewed in the U.S. or Britain, though French audiences and critics liked it, this despite the fact that Preminger’s film casts English and Americans in French roles, and the film is almost entirely in English.
Seventeen-year-old Cécile (Jean Seberg) is the indulged, free-spirited daughter of incorrigible playboy Raymond (David Niven), who’s uncomfortably close to her, they spending their carefree summers on the French Riviera, he allowing her to ignore her studies, spending their days and nights swimming, drinking, gambling at the local casinos. She’s supportive of his casual affairs, currently with ditzy but sweet Elsa (Mylène Demongeot), a young woman barely older than Raymond’s daughter. Cécile herself becomes attracted to Philippe (Geoffrey Horne, of The Bridge on the Rover Kwai), a neighbor.
Raymond has forgotten that he’s invited Anne (Deborah Kerr), the dress designer friend of an ex-wife, to visit them, and pretty soon Raymond dumps Elsa to pursue the older Anne, perhaps driven by a need to seduce and break her prim and proper manner. Instead, she, at least temporarily, breaks his, Raymond forsaking his playboy life to marry her. Threatened by Ann’s controlling, sanctimonious rule over the household, Cécile becomes determined to stop this existential threat to her idyllic life.
I think the mixed reaction that Bonjour Tristesse receives from critics and audiences then and now is that its attitudes and characters, despite the casting, are emphatically French. The screenplay by playwright Arthur Laurents, who lived in France earlier in the decade and knew well this sort of decadence, tones down the incest angle, but it’s there, rather like the incestuous bond between the Walter Pidgeon and Anne Francis father-daughter in Forbidden Planet—the film plays just fine without it, for those that fail to spot it, while it adds complex new layers for those that do. Bonjour Tristesse plays very much like a late-1950s French movie, and not remotely like a Hollywood film made there. Americans and Brits picking up on the unhealthy closeness between Cécile and Raymond, they uncomfortably touchy-feely at times, squirmed in their seats, and probably felt equally unsettled watching suave, debonair David Niven subvert his usual screen persona showcasing these same qualities while playing an insensitive, amoral if charming cad whose actions cause terrible tragedy. French film goers see it differently, a kind of nonjudgmental acceptance that such people exist.
In that sense I’m reminded of Jacques Demy’s Three Seats for the 26th (1988), in which Yves Montand, more or less playing himself, has an affair with a much younger woman (Mathilda May) who turns out to be his biological daughter. When they discover this near the end of the film, they both laugh it off as an amusing twist of fate and, well, the sex was fun while it lasted. American audiences are shocked by such things in which the French simply aren’t, Americans more likely to react like Deborah’s Kerr’s repressed Ann than comme ci comme ça Cécile.
Critics savaged Jean Seberg’s performance in Preminger’s Saint Joan, her film debut the year before, and were equally harsh assessing her work here. While I don’t think Seberg’s narration as Cécile quite works—an omnipotent narrator would have been better—her performance is fine; Seberg’s relative inexperience conforms with the character’s lack of being fully-formed. She’s something of a blank slate, having lived entirely for pleasure her whole indulged life.
The film is a feast for the eyes, partly for the Saint-Tropez and Côte d’Azur scenery; though some interiors were shot in London, 90% of the film seems to be shot location. After having suffered through Richard Thorpe’s deadly-dull CinemaScope compositions for Knights of the Round Table a few nights before, it was a pleasure to watch the superb framing and blocking of Preminger’s film, a master of the ‘scope format, in a picture gorgeously photographed by Georges Périnal, whose credits include René Clair’s À nous la liberté, the 1940 The Thief of Bagdad, Powell & Pressburger’s The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, and Chaplin’s A King in New York.
The main story is told in flashbacks, with present-day scenes in nighttime Paris in black-and-white while events from the previous summer in full color, Périnal beautifully transitioning with partial dissolves in both formats.
Previously released to Blu-ray by Twilight Time in 2012, Otto Preminger’s Bonjour Tristesse (1958) is available again as a Region “B” disc through Britain’s Indicator series, albeit limited to 3,000 copies. I don’t have the earlier Twilight Time release, but this is billed as a 4K restoration by Sony Pictures, and thus may be a newer video transfer. It’s excellent, with primary colors that really “pop” and a pleasing level of film grain—it doesn’t look overly processed. The black-and-white sequences are equally vivid and sharp, while the transitions are flawless, with no dupey optical effects. The LPCM mono audio is fine, supported by optional English subtitles.
The excellent supplements consist of a new audio commentary by writers Glenn Kenny and Farran Smith Nehme; a charming archival interview (from 2017) with the late actor Jeremy Burnham, who plays one of Seberg’s many suitors, an extra not billed on press releases; a video essay by Geoff Andrew; the 2016 featurette A Charming Little Monster, featuring an interview with the son of writer Sagan; an original trailer featuring behind-the-scenes footage and a brief interview with Sagan about the film; an isolated music and effects track, and image gallery.
Once again, sigh, The Digital Bits was sent only a check disc—c’mon guys, we want to review everything!—and thus did not receive the “limited edition exclusive booklet” featuring additional essays and other writing about the film.
Almost unique in this way, Bonjour Tristesse is like watching a French movie in English. Those willing to make that adjustment will find an intriguing, rewarding film, one of Preminger’s best.
- Stuart Galbraith IV