The frank, direct, attentive, and well-meaning way in which the characters are observed makes a sharp complexity spring from the narrative flow.

| Jun 6, 2022

With expert command of nuanced images, a haunting soundtrack, and an engaging performance from her lead character, Hansen-Love has made a compelling and melancholy film about the contradictory power of love.

| Jul 9, 2019

Relying on a mixture of rich, pastel-shaded imagery and organic symbolism, Goodbye First Love is full of complex scenes which burn on a translucent fuel of hidden meanings.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 8, 2019

Effectively extends the range of one of France's most notable young directors - besides reminding those of us who once suffered the pangs of teenage love that we're very well out of it.

| Jul 6, 2018

This film conveys the impermanence of youth by playing up another basic fact that movies take for granted: that the images you see in a theater are constantly disappearing before your eyes.

| Jan 9, 2018

Love hurts. Especially when you're 15.

| Original Score: B | Jul 27, 2012

"Goodbye First Love" is fascinating.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 28, 2012

Hansen-Lve films with an eye toward discovering and rediscovering these characters in pure moments of simple, poignant humanity - wading in a river, clambering over rocks.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 14, 2012

I can respect the director for the effort, but it felt too much like a self important student film.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 7, 2012

The first half, with its woozy romanticism, is spectacular, but it begins to lose its way.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 7, 2012

"Goodbye First Love" is like a postcard from a lost Eden, a painfully pure oasis where we're not allowed to linger.

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 25, 2012

Writer-director, Mia Hansen-Lve, whose third feature this is, has addressed her subject with complete emotional confidence.

| May 11, 2012

The autobiographical third feature from French director Mia Hansen-Lve limns the ecstasy and tumult of youthful, sometimes self-destructive passion.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | May 10, 2012

This is an easy movie to spoil. It's rather plotless. But things happen in precisely the way that life happens.

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 10, 2012

It's as precise and ultimately as undefined as life itself.

| May 5, 2012

At once a paean and a eulogy to that unforgettable first love, Mia Hansen-Lve's latest feature is a refreshingly frank look at young adult relationships.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 5, 2012

Hansen-Lve deftly captures all the emotions of a time when the shortest separation feels like an eternity and the slightest misunderstanding a calamity.

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 4, 2012

The young stars may irritate as many viewers as they delight, but their rather stroppy chemistry is convincing and memorable.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 3, 2012

Crton has the doe-like Rohmer face, and Hansen-Lve has the cool Rohmer touch - the one that lends grandeur to tales of middle-class Parisian heartache.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 3, 2012

A small, sweet film that tells an old story with some new twists.

| Original Score: 7.3/10 | May 3, 2012