''Goodbye First Love'' (french: Un amour de jeunesse) is a 2011 Franco-German film directed by
Mia Hansen-Løve
Mia Hansen-Løve (born 5 February 1981) is a French film director, screenwriter, and former actress. She has won several accolades for her work. Her first feature film, '' All Is Forgiven'', won the Louis Delluc Prize for Best First Film in 2007 ...
. It was selected for the main competition section at the 2011
Locarno International Film Festival
The Locarno Film Festival is an annual film festival, held every August in Locarno, Switzerland. Founded in 1946, the festival screens films in various competitive and non-competitive sections, including feature-length narrative, documentary, sh ...
.
Plot
Camille is 15 years old and passionately in love and lust with her boyfriend Sullivan, who is 19. Sullivan is planning a 10-month trip to South America with his friends. He is not taking Camille with him, which makes her feel insecure and resentful. She irritates Sullivan by repeatedly insisting that he doesn't love her because he is leaving her. Before Sullivan departs, they spend one last idyllic getaway in Camille's mountain home in the Ardèche. Though the vacation starts off happily, Camille grows unhappy when Sullivan is away too long on an errand and leaves her alone. After a brief fight, they reconcile, and Sullivan promises to always love her.
Eventually Sullivan leaves for his trip, leaving Camille despondent. Though Camille regularly receives letters from Sullivan, they eventually take on an unhappy tone; eventually Sullivan reveals that he wants to break off their relationship, and he stops writing. A depressed Camille attempts suicide, but survives, and resolves to move on with her life.
Four years later, Camille staves off her loneliness with work and school, where she is studying architecture. During her studies, she gradually falls in love with her much older professor Lorenz, in whom she sees a stable and secure influence and intellectual match. Four more years pass, and Camille, now with a career and a relationship with Lorenz, encounters Sullivan's mother by chance and reconnects with her old boyfriend. Coincidentally, on the day she meets with Sullivan and realizes that she is still attracted to him, she suffers a miscarriage.
When Lorenz leaves on a work trip, Camille and Sullivan begin an affair and confess that they never stopped loving each other. Consequently, her relationship with Lorenz becomes strained, especially when she secretly plans to take a trip to Sullivan's new home in Marseilles soon after Lorenz's return, under the guise of visiting a friend. However, a strike cancels her train. Though she is disappointed, a nonchalant Sullivan texts her saying that he is working anyway, and they can meet another time. Sometime later, Camille visits her mother, who gives her a letter recently sent by Sullivan. Sullivan writes that he dreamt of her while in bed with someone else, and dreamed that she was pregnant with his child. He says that they must break up because they are too early or too late to try being in love again, that he cannot bear the pain of their love, and that he hopes to find her again in the future. Camille is crushed.
Time passes, and Camille restores her relationship with Lorenz. Back at her mountain home in Ardèche, she invites him to the nearby river, and he tells her that he will meet her there shortly. She brings the hat that Sullivan had bought her for their own getaway years before, but unbeknownst to her as she plays in the river, it blows into the water and floats away as the film ends.
Cast
*
Lola Créton
Lola Créton (born 16 December 1993) is a French actress. Créton began her career at the age of 10, appearing in the short film ''Imago'' (2004). She is known for her lead roles in the films ''Goodbye First Love'' (2011) and ''Something in the ...
as Camille
*
Sebastian Urzendowsky
Sebastian Urzendowsky (born 28 May 1985) is a German actor. He has appeared in more than thirty films since 1998.
Selected filmography
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Urzendowsky, Sebastian
1985 births
Living people
Male a ...
as Sullivan
*Magne-Håvard Brekke as Lorenz
*
Valérie Bonneton
Valérie Bonneton (born 5 April 1970) is a French stage, film and television actress.
Life and career
Valérie Bonneton was born in Somain, Nord department. Her father was an insurance salesman and her mother a housewife. She grew up in nei ...
as Camille's mother
*
Serge Renko
Serge Renko is a French actor. He appeared in more than thirty films since 1982.
Selected filmography
References
External links
*
Date of birth missing (living people)
Living people
French male film actors
20th-century French male ...
as Camille's father
*
Özay Fecht
Özay Fecht (born 1953) is a Turkish-German actress and jazz singer. She was born in Istanbul and went to Germany when she was eighteen and found success.
Filmography
Television
Music
In the 1990s, she played in a group with Steve Lacy ...
as Sullivan's mother
Production
Filming
Lola Créton
Lola Créton (born 16 December 1993) is a French actress. Créton began her career at the age of 10, appearing in the short film ''Imago'' (2004). She is known for her lead roles in the films ''Goodbye First Love'' (2011) and ''Something in the ...
was 16 years old when the film was shot. Director
Mia Hansen-Løve
Mia Hansen-Løve (born 5 February 1981) is a French film director, screenwriter, and former actress. She has won several accolades for her work. Her first feature film, '' All Is Forgiven'', won the Louis Delluc Prize for Best First Film in 2007 ...
said it was a big deal for Lola to play nude scenes. "But what's amazing is that, when the cameras rolled, she was free and sensuous like a cat. It was as if she was discovering her own sexuality before our eyes, but, as soon as the filming stopped, she'd retreat behind sheets, clothes immediately."
Music
*"Volver a los 17" by
Violeta Parra
Violeta del Carmen Parra Sandoval (; 4 October 1917 – 5 February 1967) was a Chilean composer, singer-songwriter, folklorist, ethnomusicologist and visual artist. She pioneered the Nueva Canción Chilena (The Chilean New Song), a renewal and ...
*"Gracias a la vida" by
Violeta Parra
Violeta del Carmen Parra Sandoval (; 4 October 1917 – 5 February 1967) was a Chilean composer, singer-songwriter, folklorist, ethnomusicologist and visual artist. She pioneered the Nueva Canción Chilena (The Chilean New Song), a renewal and ...
*"Little Ticks of Time" by
Matt McGinn
Matthew McGinn (17 January 1928 – 5 January 1977) was a Scottish folk singer-songwriter, actor, author and poet. Born in Glasgow in 1928, McGinn was a prolific songwriter and is recognised as an influential figure in the British folk music ...
*"Music for a Found Harmonium" by
Penguin Cafe Orchestra
The Penguin Cafe Orchestra (PCO) were an avant-pop band led by English guitarist Simon Jeffes. Co-founded with cellist Helen Liebmann, it toured extensively during the 1980s and 1990s. The band's sound is not easily categorized, having elemen ...
*"Wasps in the Woodpile" by
Andrew Cronshaw
Andrew is the English form of a given name common in many countries. In the 1990s, it was among the top ten most popular names given to boys in List of countries where English is an official language, English-speaking countries. "Andrew" is freq ...
*"The Water" by
Johnny Flynn
John Patrick Vivian Flynn (born 14 March 1983) is a British actor and singer-songwriter. He has starred as Dylan Witter in the Channel 4 and Netflix television sitcom '' Lovesick'', and portrayed David Bowie in the film '' Stardust''.
Flynn i ...
and
Laura Marling
Laura Beatrice Marling (born 1 February 1990) is a British folk singer-songwriter. She won the Brit Award for Best British Female Solo Artist at the 2011 Brit Awards and was nominated for the same award at the 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2018 Brit A ...
Filming locations
*
Ardèche
Ardèche (; oc, Ardecha; frp, Ardecha) is a department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of Southeastern France. It is named after the river Ardèche and had a population of 328,278 as of 2019.[Copenhagen
Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...]
, Denmark
*
Dessau
Dessau is a town and former municipality in Germany at the confluence of the rivers Mulde and Elbe, in the '' Bundesland'' (Federal State) of Saxony-Anhalt. Since 1 July 2007, it has been part of the newly created municipality of Dessau-Roßlau ...
, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany
*
Kastrup
Kastrup () is a suburb of Copenhagen, Denmark, on the east coast of Amager in Tårnby Municipality. It is the site of Copenhagen Airport. In Danish, the airport is often called ''Kastrup Lufthavn'' (Kastrup Airport) or ''Københavns Lufthavn, Kast ...
, Amager, Denmark (sea baths)
*
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
, France
*
Sanatorium d'Aincourt
A sanatorium (from Latin '' sānāre'' 'to heal, make healthy'), also sanitarium or sanitorium, are antiquated names for specialised hospitals, for the treatment of specific diseases, related ailments and convalescence. Sanatoriums are often ...
, Aincourt, Val-d'Oise, France
Critical response
Review aggregation website
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
gives the film a rating of 83% based on reviews from 53 critics, with an average rating of 7.26/10. The site's critics consensus reads: "''Goodbye First Love'' captures teen ardor with a patiently naturalistic approach, further proving writer-director Mia Hansen-Løve is a major talent to watch."
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
gives the film a score of 80 out of 100 based on 21 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
Noel Murray of ''
The A.V. Club
''The A.V. Club'' is an American online newspaper and entertainment website featuring reviews, interviews, and other articles that examine films, music, television, books, games, and other elements of pop-culture media. ''The A.V. Club'' was cre ...
'' said that "''Goodbye First Love'' sometimes tells when it should show, and in their younger guises, particularly, Créton and Urzendowsky come off as so self-absorbed that they're almost insufferable".
Jordan Mintzer of ''
The Hollywood Reporter
''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Cinema of the United States, Hollywood film industry, film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade pap ...
'' wrote that the film is "
airy yet incisive third feature from French auteur Mia Hansen-Love".
Awards and nominations
*2011:
Locarno International Film Festival
The Locarno Film Festival is an annual film festival, held every August in Locarno, Switzerland. Founded in 1946, the festival screens films in various competitive and non-competitive sections, including feature-length narrative, documentary, sh ...
: Special Mention
*2011: Gijon Film Festival: Official Selection
References
External links
*
Film Affinity
{{Mia Hansen-Løve
2011 romantic drama films
Films about architecture
Films directed by Mia Hansen-Løve
Films set in 1999
Films set in the 2000s
Films set in Paris
French romantic drama films
German romantic drama films
Juvenile sexuality in films
French coming-of-age films
German coming-of-age films
2010s French films
2010s German films