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Jean Seberg had not one iota of acting talent. Like all her films, 'Bonjour tristesse' suffers not at all from her looks (though she is perhaps the first of those modern women whom Tom Wolfe gleefully, accurately describes as "boys with breasts": publicists, of course, use the word "gamine") but suffers grievously from Seberg's dull, monotonous, killing voice. In all her films when had to play anger, Seberg played it with grossly audible, distracting, gasping panting between her monotonously droned verbalizations. Oy.
Preminger's adaptation of Françoise Sagan's breathlessly juvenile, fantasy soap opera plot is noteworthy only for his lush cinematography - but then that's difficult to funk on the photogenic French Riviera, and perhaps for his apt, but certainly not groundbreaking, employment of black & white for the present day scenes from which Seberg's monotone narration delivers us to the flashed-back-to color past.
Juliette Gréco has a brief moment, as a nightclub chanteuse in the black & white spotlight, delivering in smoky Dietrichesque voice the bleak existentialist lyric of the title song. This moment is nowadays, in retrospect, more than a wee bit drôle. Except, of course, if you're French - particularly if you're a French "68-er" longing for the glorious days of the barricades roundabout the Sorbonne - and your kids riot to retain the lifelong sinecures which have blighted and emasculated France's economy: then you still believe in Sartre and Foucault and all such arcane, irrelevant theorists.
David Niven has the hardest role, having to play with sufficient gusto an aging hedonist who's yet to grasp that life isn't all about Sagan's teenybopper notions of a hip, cool, swingin', "mon copain!" Papa. Deborah Kerr delivers her usual, consummately professional presence, convincingly playing the woman who suffers undeservedly Seberg's spiteful teenaged snot-nose jealousy (fulfilling Sagan's shallow teen fantasy of the Classical theme of "there can be only one Queen Bee in the hive"); in fact, to Kerr belongs this film's sole great and memorable on-screen moment.
The dialogue is unnatural - I agree with an earlier reviewer who said that it sounds to be "badly translated" from French; combine the unnatural scripting with Seberg's incomparably dull, unendurable monotone and you can save that Valium for another night. Atop all that the ineptly synched post-production voice dubbing is, almost throughout, obvious and thus much more than irksome: this is especially true of the dubbing for Mylène Demongeot because it spoils her otherwise very pleasing dumb blonde performance.
Hunky Geoffrey Horne gets the short end of the stick here - a very good looking young man who also suffered from a less-than-lovely, uncinematic voice which, when paired with Seberg's drone, yields unconvincing scenes of puppy love. (Horne was, shall we say, merely adequate in 'Bridge On the River Kwai,' perhaps because his end was held up by those great cinema pros William Holden and Jack Hawkins instead of being unsupported by the regrettably ungifted Seberg).
In sum 'Bonjour tristesse' is pretty to look at but it's shallow, immature soap: thin gruel with suds.


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