That line from our lead protagonist, Camille (Lola Créton), comes about 2/3 into the movie, and describes her unshakeable love for the very mundane -- but handsome -- Sullivan (Sebastian Urzendowsky). It sums up her feelings quite well and is, at least in part, attributable to Sullivan being the first love of her life, as well as the heartbreak she suffered when their relationship ended.
The film covers phases of Camille's life across eight years, from age 15 to age 23. In the first year, Sullivan drops out of college and abandons her to go off on adventure to South America, breaking Camille's heart. He is gone from her life for eight years. For several years, Camille is celibate, until she meets and falls in love with the thirty-something Lorenz (Magne Håvard Brekke), a professor and architect. Frankly, I was rooting for Lorenz, a smart, talented and successful professional, after he fell hard for Camille, but writer Roselyne Bellec and director Mia Hansen-Love take a different path.
Sullivan's return to 23-year-old Camille upends her life with Lorenz, and she is quite brazen in her cheating, inviting Sullivan to the home she shares with Lorenz to make love. Sullivan falls head-over-heels for Camille again, and despite the cruelty he showed her eight years prior, she's right back with him. "I have you inside me like a disease," she says, and that joins the quote in my review title to encapsulate this story perfectly.
Performances across the board in Goodbye First Love are excellent and the movie is exquisitely shot and seamlessly scored. It's a small story, not a deeply meaningful epic, but it's very enjoyable despite the choices Camille makes that drive me batty. But that's first love, for you. It is either a joy that becomes a sentimental memory or a plague that you never get over.
The film covers phases of Camille's life across eight years, from age 15 to age 23. In the first year, Sullivan drops out of college and abandons her to go off on adventure to South America, breaking Camille's heart. He is gone from her life for eight years. For several years, Camille is celibate, until she meets and falls in love with the thirty-something Lorenz (Magne Håvard Brekke), a professor and architect. Frankly, I was rooting for Lorenz, a smart, talented and successful professional, after he fell hard for Camille, but writer Roselyne Bellec and director Mia Hansen-Love take a different path.
Sullivan's return to 23-year-old Camille upends her life with Lorenz, and she is quite brazen in her cheating, inviting Sullivan to the home she shares with Lorenz to make love. Sullivan falls head-over-heels for Camille again, and despite the cruelty he showed her eight years prior, she's right back with him. "I have you inside me like a disease," she says, and that joins the quote in my review title to encapsulate this story perfectly.
Performances across the board in Goodbye First Love are excellent and the movie is exquisitely shot and seamlessly scored. It's a small story, not a deeply meaningful epic, but it's very enjoyable despite the choices Camille makes that drive me batty. But that's first love, for you. It is either a joy that becomes a sentimental memory or a plague that you never get over.