Average Rating: 6.7/10
Reviews Counted: 13
Fresh: 11 | Rotten: 2
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Critic Reviews: 3
Fresh: 1 | Rotten: 2
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Francoise Sagan's bittersweet novel Bonjour Tristesse is given a sumptuous Riviera-filmed screen treatment. David Niven plays a wealthy playboy, the father of teenaged libertine-in-the-making Jean Seberg. Seberg tolerates most of her father's mistresses, but doesn't know what to make of the prudish Deborah Kerr, who will not cohabit with Niven until after they're married. Feeling that her own relation with her father will be disrupted by Kerr's presence, Seberg does her malicious best to break
Jan 1, 1958 Wide
Dec 16, 2003
All Critics (13) | Top Critics (3) | Fresh (12) | Rotten (2) | DVD (6)
Script deficiencies and awkward reading -- some lines are spoken as though just that -- have static results.
A bomb.
Arguably, this is Preminger's masterpiece.
Misunderstood at the time and still underappreciated, this 1958 glossy melodrama improves on Sagan's French novella, displaying Preminger's best qualities as auteur, moral ambiguity, detached, nonjudgmental approach, not to mention smooth visuals.
Has a glacial tone that gets covered with a lobster red French Riviera sunburn.
Kerr, of course, is a standout talent in spite of script deficiencies, and Demongeot plays the role of a silly blonde well. The Riviera scenes are rich in eye appeal and Kerr's chic costuming by Givenchy adds another plus.
The flirtation with incest at the centre of this adaptation of Françoise Sagan's novel is tame by modern standards, but the evil scheming of Seberg as the daughter set on separating her father and his mistress is still forceful.
While some may be put off by Preminger's glossy presentation of the idle rich, his direction in Bonjour Tristesse engages the mind while it stimulates the senses.
Among favorite cinephile pet auteurs, no one's reputation has had a rougher ride than that of Otto Preminger's.
For cinephiles, the career of Preminger is their oyster. Bonjour Tristesse is the pearl.
he overall ambiguity of the film and its refusal to make judgements mark it as ahead of its time, while the cast are first-rate, particularly Seberg, veering between impishly mischievous and spookily sinister.
Hollywood soap opera at its best, nicely done and still entertaining after many decades.
In "Bonjour Tristesse," Cecile(Jean Seberg) is the 17-year old daughter of Raymond(David Niven), a wealthy businessman. They are also the best of friends who are having fun on their summer holiday in the south of France. She has met a young man, Philippe(Geoffrey Horne), while Raymond's guest, Elsa(Mylene Demongeot),
January 11, 2008Super Reviewer
Honest truth time: I know the name Otto Preminger, and it was the inspiration behind my purchase of this title, but I couldn't tell you, for the life of me, why I know it, other than in his role here as director. What did he direct before? No idea. So, that might be something to take into account (or not, if you share
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