Title: Goodbye First Love

Cast: Lola Créton, Sebastian Urzendowsky and Magne-Håvard Brekke

One step from childhood to adulthood is to meet someone, have good chemistry with them, fall in love and have sex for the first time (not necessarily in that order). It’s the time of your life where it’s ok to be foolish, in love and reckless. Sometimes your first love will be your only love and you’ll live happily ever after, and other times, your first love turns out to be a horrible person, leaves you for something shinier, and to say the least, it just doesn’t work out with them. You get your first real instance of failure, disappointment and heartache. This instance in your life, unassumingly shapes the rest of your life. You aren’t so optimist about love, you’re a bit more guarded and cautious; and you’re just not as trusting as you used to be. You’re smarter! In the new film from filmmaker Mia Hansen-Løve, “Goodbye First Love,” captures these moments so well that at times it feels more like a documentary than a narrative film.

The title alone is something to consider and really says everything about this movie. Going into it, you’ll know exactly what’s being explored, but underlying it is this hint of sobering truth. The story is simple enough and is old as time itself. Girl meets boy. Girl and boy fall in love. Girl and boy become inseparable, then boy leaves girl. While away, boy promises to write girl but then slowly inches away from girl. The girl in question in “Goodbye First Love” is Camille (Lola Créton) and the boy is Sullivan (Sebastian Urzendowsky). They are both 15 years-old and all they know is their love, but quickly you get a clear impression that it means more to Camille than Sullivan. So much so, that he choses to leave their hometown of Paris to travel to South America to find adventure. Of course, Sullivan is justified in this decision because it is, after all, his own life, but Camille can’t stand the idea of being without Sullivan that she threatens him with suicide if he ever leaves her. Teenagers are realistically over-dramatic, and we get a great sense of this melodrama in “Goodbye First Love,” but what happens when threats turn into action.

Interestingly, this film isn’t really about a nasty break-up, but rather the effects of that nasty break-up on the rest of your life. The film follows the span of 8 years in these characters lives, but more importantly, Camille, this is her movie. She attempts suicide, survives, graduates high school, goes to college, graduates college and starts a very promising career as an architect. During all these events, transitions and turning points in her life, there is this looming thought or ghost of her past lover. A linger that handicaps her pursuit of any meaningful love. In fact, she starts to have an affair with her architect professor (Magne Håvard Brekke), which starts playfully but ends up to be a serious and mutually loving relationship, but as Camille states latter part of the film, “It’s a different type of love”.

Effectively, Hansen-Løve never creates a scene that doesn’t have that hint of truth I brought up earlier. It never devolves into a “happy, love conquers all” movie like something we might see in “(500) Days of Summer,” but rather she lets the scenes go on longer than they should so the point hits harder or in contrast, cuts to the next scene as quickly as possible, never giving you the feeling of complacency during the more loving affectionate scenarios. Is this to show the dynamic of what it feels like to have your first love break your heart? Are we at a cautious distance to this film like Camille would be to potential suitors?

Mia Hansen-Løve has created a gem with “Goodbye First Love”. She has made a film with a rich and deep world with equally rich and deep characters to inhabit it. Hansen-Løve delivers true emotion, I feel anyone who has ever had their heartbroken at one point in their lives, can appreciate and recognize “the look” on the screen. “Goodbye First Love” is an accurate (or at least, close to as accurate as a movie can be) to the triumphs and pitfalls of first love. This is a valuable look and should serve as a roadmap for heartbreak and disappointment.

This film ends with such a bittersweet note that can be interpreted as either hopeful or hopeless, it all really depends on your personal outlook on life and love. The sentiment of goodbye first love shouldn’t just apply to the film’s title or subject matter, but it should apply to life in general, especially when it comes to that most important thing.

Technical: B+

Overall: A-

by @Rudie_Obias