Young love is as stupid and silly as it is hopeful and joyous. When you're 15 years old you have little to no experience coupled with raging hormones and complex, often overwhelming emotions. Rarely does anything feel right or comfortable at 15, including love.
Appropriately named director Mia Hansen-Love and wonderful young actors Lola Creton and Sebastian Urzendowsky give young love the respectful and honest portrayal it deserves in the film Goodbye First Love. Creton plays Camille and Urzendowsky plays Sullivan, two Parisian teenagers who are in the midst of a passionate relationship when Sullivan decides to drop out of high school and travel to South America for the better part of a year. Camille, at age 15, can't fathom Sullivan leaving her for such a long period of time. But Sullivan, at the wise age of 17, knows he is called to travel.
Creton and Urzendowsky play their parts with remarkable realism and empathy. Camille comes off as overbearing and mopey--sobbing at the thought of Sullivan leaving and, in the process, driving Sullivan even further away. Yet she also comes off as very sympathetic because who hasn't been through those feelings? It takes a long time to learn to let the people you care about do what they need to do without clinging to them for dear life. Hell, most adults haven't mastered it! Sullivan's 10 months in South American turn into years, and Camille begins to move forward with her life: cutting her hair into a cute pixie and going to architecture school. Even as she begins to grow into herself, you can sense an emotional heaviness she continues to carry with her: melancholy defines Creton's lovely face. As the years go by, Camille begins a relationship with her much older professor (like, two decades plus), which makes sense despite being, in my mind, incredibly creepy. Camille clearly wants to grow up and get away from the sad-faced, crying little girl she was before. She is a sophisticated and very intelligent young woman, which makes her naturally drawn to an older, artistic man.
But as Camille's life becomes more stable, a chance encounter with Sullivan's mother brings the young man back into Camille's life--and this time it seems like Sullivan is the mopey, clinging one.
Goodbye First Love was a bit difficult for me to watch because the emotions are so real and potent without being melodramatic. I really understood Camille, with her immaturity and romantic, sensitive heart. And I felt a certain amount of anger at Sullivan who, despite being in the right about chasing after his own life, really jerks Camille around--both before he leaves and after he comes back. But neither Sullivan or Lorenz (the professor) are the center of this film. It's Camille's story and it's an uplifting, beautiful one because even as she messes up and makes questionable choices, you see her grow. The movie ends when she's about 23--still so young, with so much more to learn and with many more chances to have her heart broken and then love again. But it's beautiful because, just as Sullivan went on a physical and geographical journey, you can clearly see that Camille is on her own journey within herself.
4.5 out of 5 stars
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