[Spoilers included] In Paris (in black & white), we see young Cecile (Jean Seberg, at left) on a night on the town: she starts at an art show, then goes to find her father Raymond (David Niven) who is with his mistress Denise, then hangs out with Jacques in a club. The whole time she seems bored or dissatisfied, which we can tell from her actions and from her sad inner thoughts which we hear on the soundtrack. The title song ("Hello Sadness" in English) is sung in a nightclub by Juliette Greco, then a flashback begins and the film goes to color. It's last summer on the Riviera. Cecile is staying with her father (and Elsa, his young blonde mistress) in a house on the shore as she finishes up her classes, which she is in danger of flunking. While swimming, she runs across a young man, Philippe, whose canoe's mast has broken. She helps him to shore and these two very pretty people begin a casual fling. This summer idyll comes to an end with the surprising arrival of Anne (Deborah Kerr), a dress designer and old friend of Raymond's late wife. Raymond forgot that he invited her, and her straight-laced moral attitude disrupts their behavior. Slowly, sparks fly between Anne and Raymond, though she won't sleep with him unless they get married. Elsa is more or less kicked out of the house, and Anne, turning into a strict mother figure, tries to break up Cecile and Philippe. Angry because both of the men in her life, Philippe and Raymond, are alienated from her, Cecile begins plotting. First, she loses her virginity to Philippe, then she gets Elsa to come back and flirt with Raymond so that Anne will catch them together. Anne does, and driving off in a fury, she drives over a cliff, killing herself. Was it an accident or a suicide? Back in Paris in the present day, it doesn't seem to matter as both Raymond and Cecile are living the high life again.
This melodrama, based on a bestseller by 19-year-old Francoise Sagan, was seen as a vehicle for Otto Preminger to cement the reputation of 20-year-old Jean Seberg, whom he had introduced the year before in Saint Joan, which was a flop. Seberg's mannered performance was disliked by many critics, but I think it works quite well here. It keeps the character at a distance which makes it difficult to judge her for her machinations—is her behavior because she's young and spoiled, or is she mentally unbalanced, or is she just acting out and accidentally causing harm? Of course, that all overlooks her intimate relationship with her father. Jeffrey Kauffman at Blu-ray.com uses the term "platonic incest" for this pair and I think that nails it. Niven and Seberg play them as very close, but I didn't read any sexual tension between the two, though clearly they are too close, given that Seberg short-circuits any other relationship that one of them gets involved in. Seberg is beautiful and wholesomely sexy in her looks, Kerr is worldly but pinched off emotionally. Niven is middle-age-playboy attractive, but we shouldn't forget that if he hadn't betrayed Kerr, even if it was just a playful incident, the tragedy wouldn't have played out like it did, no matter how Seberg arranged things. Mylene Demongeot (Elsa) and Geoffrey Horne (Philippe, at right) are good looking and relatively innocent, and I wish they had been developed a bit more; both of them are used and get hurt to some degree but we're sure they'll rebound. I assume the Paris scenes are in black & white for easy identification, as they pop up periodically throughout the flashback. The location shooting is gorgeous. I liked this much more than I expected to; ultimately, it's a pretty-people soap opera, but it's entertaining and occasionally thought-provoking. [Criterion Channel]
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