Bonjour Tristesse (French "Hello, Sadness") is a 1958 British-American Technicolor film in CinemaScope,[2] directed and produced by Otto Preminger from a screenplay by Arthur Laurents based on the novel of the same name by Françoise Sagan.
The film stars Deborah Kerr, David Niven, Jean Seberg, Mylène Demongeot and Geoffrey Horne, and features Juliette Gréco, Walter Chiari, Martita Hunt and Roland Culver.
While dancing to a performance of "Bonjour Tristesse," she wonders if she will ever find happiness again after what happened a year ago when she was 17 that summer on the French Riviera.
Cécile and Raymond are enjoying their vacation on the Riviera, the latter's latest mistress being Elsa, a flighty, superficial, vain woman.
The BFI's Monthly Film Bulletin wrote[4] "The best performance is David Niven's; he gives his part a pathetic touch that the writing never attains.
Jean-Luc Godard said "The character played by Jean Seberg (in Breathless) was a continuation of her role in Bonjour Tristesse, I could have taken the last shot of Preminger's film and started after dissolving to a title: "Three years later".
[7] Critic Keith Uhlich of Time Out New York wrote: "the director uses the expansive CinemaScope frame and his eye for luxuriant, clinical mise en scène to soberly probe rather than gleefully prod.