Throughout December, J.R. Jones and I will take turns writing about our favorite films that had their Chicago premieres this year.
In his capsule review, J.R. Jones described writer-director Mia Hansen-Løve as the protégé of the great Olivier Assayas (Carlos, Irma Vep), but I’d contend she’s already his equal. Goodbye, First Love manipulates time just as radically as Assayas’s Demonlover—another movie in which life always feels two jumps ahead of the characters—yet it’s not as abrasive. Depicting the relationship between teenage lovers both during their romance and the decade afterwards, the movie is a fluid, sensitive depiction of the loss of innocence.