“Bonjour Tristesse” is the kind of atmospheric, visually lush summer vacation film that makes you want to melt into the frame. Durga Chew-Bose, a journalist and writer known for the 2017 book “Too Much and Not the Mood: Essays,” makes her directorial debut with the film. It’s a modernized adaptation of French writer Françoise Sagan’s 1954 novel, which was previously brought to the screen by Otto Preminger in 1958.
For two of the cast members — Lily McInerny and Chloë Sevigny — the experience of filming in the rich landscape of Cassis, France wasn’t too dissimilar from the characters’ day-to-day lifestyle. “Chloë and I would spend the weekends on the beach, and I’d be going over my lines with an Aperol Spritz next to me,” said McInerny, who made her film debut in 2022’s “Palm Trees and Power Lines.”
The tension between McInerny and Sevigny’s characters is the engine for this coming-of-age story, which arrives in theaters Friday. McInerny’s Cécile is a free-spirited 18-year-old on vacation with her widowed father Raymond (Claes Bang) and his girlfriend Elsa (Nailia Harzoune). When Sevigny’s Anne, a close friend of Cécile’s late mother, joins their vacation, Anne and Raymond begin a relationship. Cécile then devises a plan to separate them by having Elsa and Cécile’s own boyfriend, Cyril (Aliocha Schneider) pretend to be a couple, knowing that the situation would spark Raymond’s jealousy.
“Bonjour Tristesse” is set in the present day but pulls from vintage aesthetics. It “exists out of time” and taps into a “classic Hollywood or classic French New Wave” sensibility, Sevigny said. The film is also stylistically distinct in its pacing and deliberate rhythm — a quality that Sevigny notes can be tough for mainstream audiences.
“If it was a French film or Rohmer or an Almodovar, you wouldn’t bump against it so much. You would give over to it more. That kind of pacing we’re used to in foreign filmmaking, so that someone attempted that in the English language is a little challenging for people,” Sevigny said.
McInerny adds that the distinct style can be jarring in a contemporary film “where it certainly isn’t the status quo. It deviates from that quite confidently.”
Below, McInerny and Sevigny tell Variety about bonding as co-stars, their characters’ relationship and their differing perspectives on the film’s main plot point.
Lily, I read that you’ve known Durga for a long time. Can you tell me about how you first met?
McInerny: So Durga and I have a really sweet, surreal story on how we first met. She was best friends with my cousin in college, and she ended up becoming a babysitter to my brother and I when I was only about 10 years old. That was well before my acting career had taken off and well before her career as a writer and now filmmaker. But I followed her work as a writer as I grew up, and she [followed] my development as an actor. When it came time for “Bonjour Tristesse,” it was this really serendipitous reunion.
How did working with a director that you knew personally beforehand help you shape this character, who is in this coming-of-age part of her life?
McInerny: She really just made me feel completely comfortable sharing everything with her and feeling as though no emotional territory was off limits. Nothing I suggested would be criticized or diminished even if it wasn’t the right choice or if an idea was stupid. There was never a world where I didn’t feel comfortable putting that into the air.
The set of “Bonjour Tristesse.”
Jessica Forde
Did you both feel an immediate connection to your characters?
McInerny: I wasn’t aware of the original novel before I became involved with the film, so I didn’t have an understanding of the history or weight when I first got the call. Of course, immediately after becoming involved, I picked up the book and devoured it, and it quickly became one of my favorite books of all time. Still is, and not just because I’m biased. I was pretty much immediately in love with Cécile and the world that Durga created and the world that Françoise Sagan originated for us. I’m also just a huge fan of her in general, and the way that Françoise is in her life and so although of course “Bonjour Tristesse” is fictional, I felt as though we as an entire production drew a lot of inspiration from Françoise Sagan and the life she lived.
Sevigny: I had been doing a lot of TV, a lot of high stakes work, and I feel like having the opportunity to play a character that was more internal and more quiet and had an elegance and a grace to her was something that I hadn’t played in a while. And so I thought that was an opportunity for me to try that on screen, to exercise something that I feel like I have within me.
Claes Bang as Raymond, Lily McInerny as Cécile and Chloë Sevigny as Anne in “Bonjour Tristesse.”
Giacomo Bernasconi
How did you prepare to play these two characters, given that their relationship is so central to the story?
Sevigny: Funny enough, Lily grew up on the street that I live on in Manhattan, and so we just also had a lot of mutual friends in New York. She dated one of my best friend’s sons years ago, and we actually used her photo as Cécile’s mother in the movie. There’s just a common ground. She went to LaGuardia, and just being New York City kids, there was an understanding that went on on set, and there was an ease. We got along pretty well. We were pretty lucky. I just really like Lily, thank God!
McInerny: For real.
Sevigny: Lily’s kind of a goofball, and this was a big opportunity for her … and I wanted to bring whatever I could to help tell the story and support Lily and Durga. I’ve been working in the business for 30 years. Making decisions now that I have a family, especially to be away and having to bring sitters and another friend and be at work all day and then not with my kid — I don’t want to say I’m more choosy, but it has to be something I really believe in, and part of that was believing in these two women and wanting to help propel them.
McInerny: That truly means so much, Chloë, I love you. But honestly the trust that you placed in me went so far. Your support and your friendship and your attitude really empowered me to do something that was very challenging and intimidating at times. It was totally invaluable to my performance, so thank you.
Lily McInerny in “Bonjour Tristesse.”
Courtesy of Greenwich Entertainment
Lily, there’s a shot of Cécile just untangling her earbuds. How does Cécile being a modern teenager with access to technology add to this character that has been around for years?
McInerny: I thought about that a lot. Does it affect her very much as opposed to the Preminger adaptation or the original novel? One area that I really thought about in creating a contemporary adaptation of Cécile was the idea of being perceived and an expression of femininity and sexuality in a digital age, how her relationship with social media could possibly influence the way she defines herself as a young woman and comes of age. So in that way, we have that scene of her doing makeup, in the reflection of her MacBook, and I’m sure she is finding outfit inspiration on Pinterest and has really organized and in-depth Spotify playlists. Aside from that, I think she exists very much in the moment and is very grounded by her lifestyle with Raymond. I don’t think she’s a very chronically online teen. I think she spends a lot of time being bored and getting creative on how to pass time together with her loved ones.
When Anne first arrives at the villa, she and Cécile embrace. It’s clear that Cécile has grown up knowing who this woman is. Lily, in that moment, how does Cécile view Anne and how does that perception change throughout the film?
McInerny: Anne is a link to the history of my father that he tries to conceal. She’s also linked to my mother, who I lost at a very young age. She represents the access to this past that I’ve been blocked out of as a teenage daughter. I think it’s so interesting at that age you start to view the adults in your life more as peers and you start to question the history of your parents and who they were before you came into their lives. So I’m deeply curious about Anne, and I’m really excited to see what kind of information I can get out of her and filling in the puzzle pieces of this mysterious past of my father’s.
Chloë, vice versa, how does Anne think of Cécile at the beginning of the film and how does that evolve?
Sevigny: Anne probably feels guilty that she doesn’t spend as much time with her, hasn’t really been in her life as consistently. But she kind of makes excuses for it because of work and just not having access to Cécile. She probably feels like it’s a great loss, and she really misses her friend and sees her friend’s face in Cécile, and it’s a little disarming for her. But as the days go on, she really desperately wants to connect and wants to give her a leg up in whatever way she thinks that is. Oftentimes it’s the wrong way, and it ends up pissing Cécile off a little bit.
Courtesy of Greenwich Entertainment
What did you both think of Cécile’s conceit, her plan to break up her father’s new relationship with Anne by using Elsa and Cyril? Especially Lily, considering you hadn’t read the novel before this project?
McInerny: I was really compelled to see a teenage girl realize her own power in real time because often times we see teenage girl characters realizing their vulnerabilities. The previous film that I did, I was portraying a really beautiful but very vulnerable story as a victim of a harmful dynamic. So I was really excited to take on more of a villainous side. Of course, you can empathize with and justify her reasoning. Ultimately, I think the tipping point for Cécile’s decision to break up their relationship was when her sexual relationships started to become threatened and her sexual autonomy came into question. As soon as Anne started to have a say in my world of love, I would go to any lengths to protect that side of myself.
Sevigny: I did bump against it. Do I want to propel the storyline of the older woman scorned for the younger woman? But I see that happening around me. It happened to a close friend of mine. She’s an artist, and she committed herself to her art and her and her boyfriend together for years and years and didn’t have a child. And now he’s with a girl 30 years younger. And it just happens. As much as we don’t want to promote it or propel it, it’s a reality. Overall, I thought examining the relationship between a daughter and father and female relationships could have trumped that. And just the opportunity to work with Durga and Lily and propel them trumped that as well for me. But I was, and I still, grapple with it.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
