Goodbye First Love

Mia Hansen-Løve's Goodbye First Love covers the well-worn ground of teenage romance, but it does so with a sensitivity and honesty that makes the subject feel bracingly fresh. The luminous Lola Créton plays Camille, a 15-year-old left heartbroken when her boyfriend embarks on a global trip and gradually loses touch. Over the course of the following decade, Hansen-Løve periodically revisits Camille as she moves on with her life and builds both a new career and relationship for herself, while never quite letting go of the first boy who won her heart. Goodbye First Love provides yet more evidence that Hansen-Løve is a natural filmmaker, constantly alive to moments of grace and subtlety and capable of drawing wonderfully naturalistic performances from her actors. Her storytelling here has a meandering, contemplative quality, but the emotional truth at its core keeps the picture anchored as it wisely and delicately shows us how first love hits us hard, before exploring the ways we change, and the ways we don't. [Philip Concannon]