Bonjour Tristesse

Bonjour Tristesse (1958) is Otto Preminger's drama from Françoise Sagan's novel, and you can watch it online on iFILM. Seventeen-year-old Cécile drifts through a Riviera summer with her widowed, pleasure-seeking father and his current young companion.

The easy rhythm breaks when Anne Larsen arrives — an old friend of her father's, composed and grown-up in a way the household is not. Once Raymond announces he means to marry her, Cécile sets out to protect her careless life by any means, and quietly engineers a scheme to drive Anne away. Jean Seberg plays the girl who doesn't yet grasp the stakes; David Niven is the father, Deborah Kerr the woman who threatens to change everything.

Preminger shot the present-day Riviera in color and the Paris memories in black and white, and that split runs through the whole picture. Coolly stylish and ahead of its moment, it later became a touchstone for the French New Wave. A sharp study of growing up and first guilt. Stream Bonjour Tristesse (1958) online on iFILM.