User reviews

One of the first things you notice in Mia Love-Hansen's film, 'Goodbye First Love', is that the supposedly fifteen year old protagonist looks much older; it turns out, there's a reason for this, which is that the drama is going to follow her over several years, so the age of the actress was necessarily a compromise. In fact, the film is conceptually not dissimilar (though heterosexual, and less generally ambitious) from 'Blue is the Warmest Colour': a sensitive and well-drawn story about a talented, attractive young woman whose life is overshadowed by the memory of an intense early relationship. As in real life, when someone is pointlessly in love with someone who does not desire them, you partly want to scream "get over it!", especially when they have obvious advantages they could be exploiting; but humans aren't that simple, although the ending is a touch underwhelming, the story is nicely observed. And if you generally like emotional films about beautiful young Parisiennes, you'll like this one too.

one of the best romance movie I've ever seen. it shows a story of an ordinary girl in Paris that her first love had some effect on her. Cammile believes in her love and always says she can't live without love. she's just a 15-year-old girl when finds her love and wants to keep it forever. but, the boy left him and pursue his happiness without her. throughout the movie, we don't hear much dialogs. but the different scenes talk to us about the life of the main character. Cammile is not kinda girl who mingle with different people or be talkative. you can just find out her feelings from her eyes. this movie is good for whom wants to see the real life of people. you cannot expect happen something thrilling or extraordinary from this movie. it just shows us the truth of life. someone may dislike the movie because of the slow pace of the movie. however, this is the feature of this kinda films. the slow pace lets you think about the feelings of the main character at the mean time. it ends in the best way that you can't anticipate it before. everything was natural and I really enjoyed it.

There are times when I long for a great new film from France. Gone it seems are the days of Goretta, Chabrol, Truffaut, Malle and Bresson. Sometimes Techine rises to it, but only just. I was reminded a few days ago of what we are missing when I caught up with Mia Hansen-Love's "Goodbye First Love", a film that conveys the ecstasy and pangs of adolescent passion with a delicacy that the French so often manage to achieve with such effortless ease. In short, this could not have come from any other country. I watched the first third which follows the intense relationship of eighteen year old Sullivan and the younger Camille with something of the excitement of rediscovery. Hansen-Love's direction has a fluency and pace that perfectly match the breakneck quality of an affair teetering on the edge of uncertain fulfilment. When Sullivan departs with his mates on a South American backpacking trip Camille is distraught. Her slow recovery and recognition of a different type of love in her relationship with her mature architecture teacher, Lorenz, form the central part of the film. Unfortunately with the absence of a frenetic passion something of the vitality of the first third is lessened and the film becomes an altogether more mundane affair that even Sullivan's return several months later cannot quite rescue from the occasional yawn. What I imagined from the beginning might prove to be a re-run into "La Dentelliere" country ends up as something far less substantial in quality. Today's French cinema, although often still quite distinctive in style, sadly lacks a director of the calibre of those men from the past.

(57%) If you close your eyes and imagine a modestly budgeted French film centred around the love and loss of Parisian girl, then this is almost certainly what you'd have in mind. In a very similar form to that of 2013's Blue is the warmest colour, this takes the more realistic route to express itself. So expect lots of scenes in which hardly anything happens, a purposefully plodding pace, and characters that live and breathe more in reality of everyday life rather than the pages of a piece of fiction. The performances are subdued, and the script is penned back keeping everything in the realms of normality which does have its engrossing elements, but it also could make this an unbearable watch for some. After Boyhood went above and beyond to have its lead actor at the same age as the character, while this on the other hand has the issue of Lola Creton looking a bit too old to be 15 at the start of the film, and a bit too young looking to be high-rising architect by the second half. Boyhood really has spoilt us. The relationship at the heart of the film is undoubtedly idyllic, sometimes a little too idyllic, but unlike the better Blue is the warmest colour this isn't as painful to watch when things start to go rough. Fans of realistic romantic drama should give this a look, but those who like explosions and fistfights need not apply.

It's Paris 1999. Camille is 15 and Sullivan is 19 and they're in love. He's dropping out of school to go off to South America without her. After awhile, he stops writing to her and she falls into a suicidal depression. Years later, she's in love with her professor Lorenz. She has an intense relationship with him and then Sullivan returns into her life.

This is a lot of young love without limits. This is a very french movie. The young leads play their part like any random young lovers. This is semi-realism. I don't particularly like the guy. The fact is that he leaves her behind which puts into question how much he truly loves her. He's callous to her feelings and she's an overwrought young girl. Their original romance is not that dramatic since the movie is just waiting for them to break up. I'm just not particularly in love with their love and it's a passable romance.

Most of us at one time or another have experienced the sacramental beauty of loving another being. Love, however, defies analysis and often does not fit our pictures. From an outsider's point of view, there are more unlikely couples than likely ones, but those who are not in the lover's shoes may be unable to fully understand their feelings. Camille (Lola Créton), in Mia Hansen-Love's third feature Goodbye First Love, is repeatedly told by parents and friends to forget the young man who claims to love her for eternity, but then leaves abruptly on a trip to "discover himself." That she is unable to let go is not a sign of immaturity or madness, but only of the depth of her love and the betrayal she feels.

The 17-year-old Créton (Something in the Air) is stunning both in her appearance and her ability as an actress. There is never a moment when it feels that she is just playing a role rather than being herself. Hansen-Love, herself only thirty one, paints a striking picture of the impact of first love. When Camille meets and falls for the bland 19-year-old Sullivan (Sebastian Urzendowsky) at the age of fifteen, her first involvement is both joyous and heartbreaking. To Camille, Sullivan is her world and she is obsessed with him. Overly dramatic, she threatens that if he leaves her, she will "jump into Seine." He responds by saying that "If you cut your hair, I'll kill you," presumably sparing her the trouble of jumping into the Seine. Sullivan's relationship with Camille, though tender, lacks commitment.

For him, it feels as if love is a good idea but not something he feels in his bones and the chemistry between the two is missing in subtlety and depth. On vacation in the idyllic Ardèche region of Southern France, Sullivan dumps on her, relating his plans to drop out of school and backpack through South America for ten months with friends. Obviously, the "friends" part of it does not include Camille. When he is on his trip, she follows his journey via his letters and pushes pins into a map to mark his whereabouts. Though he promises to begin again where they left off, he soon writes to her that he wants to be free. Camille takes it hard, very hard and as time melts away, she is no closer to acceptance than the day she received the news.

Hansen-Love does not give us much information as to the passage of time, but we know that years have passed during which Camille has gone to school to study architecture and has begun to build a new life with Lorenz (Magne Håvard Brekke), a considerably older professor of Architecture. Growing in maturity, she has become a young professional, having apparently moved on from Sullivan, that is, until he comes back into her life, seemingly unchanged both physically and emotionally. Goodbye First Love can be meandering without much happening in the way of narrative and the jumpiness of the editing can be frustrating.

Hansen-Love rarely stays with one scene (especially the love-making scenes) long enough for us to feel any deepening involvement, yet the film succeeds in capturing the extreme mood swings of adolescence with sensitivity and we can relate to the emotional pain a breakup can cause when people's feelings are treated in a cavalier fashion. What also works is the eclectic soundtrack that features Patrick Street, Violeta Parra, Matt McGinn, Johnny Flynn and Laura Marling, music that adds another dimension to the film. While it is not a "message film," what comes through for me in Goodbye First Love is the Buddhist idea that the origin of suffering is attachment to things that are impermanent such as desire and passion. Nirvana, however, is not always comprehensible for those who are fifteen years old.

Louis Garrel recently made his first feature film as director, Le Petit Tailleur, in an interview afterwards he admitted that his film was of a Paris that did not exist anymore, where the young went to the theatre to see Kleist. His film, as this one, contains a nostalgia for the New Wave. This is tacitly admitted in Goodbye First Love when Sullivan mentions that he went to a party in the suburbs where kids went to have sex and take drugs, a piece of shrapnel that doesn't fit in the jigsaw of this movie. The young of the developed world live with their eyes burnt out.

Goodbye First Love tells the story of Camille, in love with Sullivan, and how she copes with losing that love and moving on with her life. There's something pristine about the way that young animals love and lust together, narcotic and somewhat illusory, but on the threshold of paradise; and actually the most astonishing part of the film practically occurs in an Eden. One its successes is the casting of two actors who have an obvious sexual compatibility, which lends credibility to the treatment.

Mature love comes, but lies in the cradle of shared creativity and mutual respect, which should represent a superannuation of first love; but flesh is not just. For Camille, riding on the pannier rack of Sullivan's bicycle and grasping his body will always be the seed of her crystal.

Goodbye First Love, by the way, is an incredible aesthetic treat (my favourite part may well have been when the two rake over the ashes of their love, lying together likes ravens in a shattered tower, all a creation of capturing colour carefully). I felt privileged to have watched it, to have been let inside what's a meagerly-camouflaged auto-biography from Mia Hansen-Løve. I may well love and be loved back one day, but it won't be the Hamelin song that Mia has let me see, and I'm grateful to her for this facsimile.

I enjoyed this French drama. Hansen-Love seems very influenced by French New Wave filmmakers, such as Rohmer. The English title is poor since it gives away a plot line. The French title in English is A Love of Youth, or more freely A Teen Romance. It does manage to capture that interesting relationship, however it goes into other directions as well. For those who like indie/ art-house French dramas, Hansen-Love's work is well worth looking into.

Being a fan of French cinema, Goodbye first love was a terrible disappointment. I had to witness some very abrupt cuts throughout the movie. The characteristic of female protagonist gets monotonous within just the first twenty minutes of watching which then continues for another 85 minutes. The movie lacked continuity throughout. The story which could have otherwise been presented beautifully has been treated awfully and looked more or less like a student's work which is yet to be reviewed and scrutinized by the professor. The story although based on a very common subject and not so different from many others that I've watched, lacked necessary details. There are sudden appearances and disappearances of characters(existing and new) without any necessary introduction or reason. I'm surprised as to how the producer managed to find the distributors. Not worth your time.

Despite the nice cinematography, lots about this irritated me. Not least the character of the first boyfriend, who came across as a real self-centred arsehole whom she should have been well rid of (as accurately and regularly stated by both her parents). For a lot of the time, she also had a petulant expression which made it additionally hard to sympathise.

However, as well as the characterisation, there were some puzzling lurches in the story (maybe I'd just tuned out?) and, regular use of scenes that just stopped before they'd really ended.... which was a bit frustrating.

Not recommended, unless you're in the market for a "typically French" film with a feel-bad vibe...

Mia Hansen-Love comes from a philosophical background, and in my opinion is too clear eyed to indulge in the softer edges of so-called ' first love. ' I think the English translation of the film does it an injustice and ' Un Amour de Jeunesse ' should have remained. ' Goodbye First Love ' borders on a weepy prospect and this cinematic near masterpiece is anything but that. I have seen the film three times and its quiet intensity is overwhelming. The director is looking at her characters and trying, as every thinker does to see where the balances and imbalance of passionate young relationships are. The ' story ' is deceptively simple; Lola Creton plays a teenage girl who believes she has found her lifetime partner, and her passion is idealistic and her cry of ' Romeo ' as her lover enters through her window shows how much she projects on him of being the Shakespearean hero who would give up his life for her. Sebastian Urzendowsky plays her ' Romeo ' but has no intention of giving up anything for her. He loves her in his own romantic way as young men can but it is a romance that hurts him with its demands. There is a brief scene of him lying on a bed face clearly grief stricken at the feelings he is enduring towards her. He knows that despite his passion for her they are both suffering because of it. End of spoilers. Both young actors are good in their roles but somehow I found their names, Camille and Sullivan as too contrived and in their way too literary and this niggled. Visually the film is superb adding beauty to the visual beauty of the two lovers. Fortunately a Danish man comes into the film, and his older time worn face put a harder edge on this young perfection, and without saying why so as not to spoil the impact of his presence he balances a lot out and leads towards what we all call the reality of life. Love showed her intelligence and clear sightedness in not making him an outer ideal. I will watch this film again because it shows how deeply romantic love can scar, and hints that once we have known it we never forget. And that it can sour the rest of our lives. That is my take on this film and others will have less serious feelings about what they have just seen. In short Mia Hansen-Love is one of the finest directors France has, and long will she continue to make cinema that is against the grain of a lot of rubbish that has become a world wide necessity.

That line from our lead protagonist, Camille (Lola Créton), comes about 2/3 into the movie, and describes her unshakeable love for the very mundane -- but handsome -- Sullivan (Sebastian Urzendowsky). It sums up her feelings quite well and is, at least in part, attributable to Sullivan being the first love of her life, as well as the heartbreak she suffered when their relationship ended.

The film covers phases of Camille's life across eight years, from age 15 to age 23. In the first year, Sullivan drops out of college and abandons her to go off on adventure to South America, breaking Camille's heart. He is gone from her life for eight years. For several years, Camille is celibate, until she meets and falls in love with the thirty-something Lorenz (Magne Håvard Brekke), a professor and architect. Frankly, I was rooting for Lorenz, a smart, talented and successful professional, after he fell hard for Camille, but writer Roselyne Bellec and director Mia Hansen-Love take a different path.

Sullivan's return to 23-year-old Camille upends her life with Lorenz, and she is quite brazen in her cheating, inviting Sullivan to the home she shares with Lorenz to make love. Sullivan falls head-over-heels for Camille again, and despite the cruelty he showed her eight years prior, she's right back with him. "I have you inside me like a disease," she says, and that joins the quote in my review title to encapsulate this story perfectly.

Performances across the board in Goodbye First Love are excellent and the movie is exquisitely shot and seamlessly scored. It's a small story, not a deeply meaningful epic, but it's very enjoyable despite the choices Camille makes that drive me batty. But that's first love, for you. It is either a joy that becomes a sentimental memory or a plague that you never get over.

One of the worst french films I have ever seen. The plot seemed interesting, and I have no doubt it could have been a much better film. But it is annoyingly slooooooooowwwww, I even watched 20 minutes at 2x (since I watched it subbed, I could read the subtitles either way) before definitely shutting it down. Full of meaningless scenes. It could have last 60 minutes and, perhaps, been a little better. I almost had a nervous breakdown due to its incredibly slooooowwwwww pace (I know I already said that, but I still cannot believe how slooooooooowwww it was). My recommendation... don't waste your time, go find another film.

First love is the knife that slows tears your heart apart. What makes it even worse is that it always remain uncompleted but the feeling of getting cut for the first time is never reborn. This hits too close to home. We have to let go of things but sometimes we cant. We do things we wont even fathom doing. Emotional. But maybe they should have focussed on that a more. And same actors as child actors doesnt feel right. The time doesnt seem to catchup. Good visuals and topic dealt with sensitivity. Can we love more than one person, if so how it relates with the concept of cheating. Maybe the boundries are being tore down. But we cant keep on clinging to things which tears us apart.

Being a fan of romantic drama films, I really did not enjoy this one. Monotonic dialogues, static and unvaried scenes, no expressed emotional flux, no background audio and, most importantly, with all the supposed emotional connection between Camille and Sullivan, I did not feel the connection or the harmony at all between both in any scene, even in the most supposedly-intimate scenes, neither did I feel any involvement throughout the film. On the contrary, I felt angry at some scenes. At some point dialogues were more of reading than acting. Part of the plot was good but poorly acted. I wouldn't recommend it for those looking for a good romantic drama film.