jean seberg have not one iota of act talent . like all her film and bonjour tristesse suffers not at all from her look ( though she be perhaps the first of those modern woman whom tom wolfe gleefully and accurately describe a boy with breast represent publicist and of course and use the word gamine ) but suffers grievously from seberg dull and monotonous and killing voice . in all her film when have to play anger and seberg play it with grossly audible and distract and gasp pant between her monotonously droned verbalization . oy . preminger adaptation of françoise sagan breathlessly juvenile and fantasy soap opera plot be noteworthy only for his lush cinematography but then that difficult to funk on the photogenic french riviera and and perhaps for his apt and but certainly not groundbreaking and employment of black and white for the present day scene from which seberg monotone narration delivers u to the flash back to color past . juliette gréco have a brief moment and a a nightclub chanteuse in the black and white spotlight and delivering in smoky dietrichesque voice the bleak existentialist lyric of the title song . this moment be nowadays and in retrospect and more than a wee bit drôle . except and of course and if youre french particularly if youre a french 68 er longing for the glorious day of the barricade roundabout the sorbonne and your kid riot to retain the lifelong sinecure which have blight and emasculate france economy represent then you still believe in sartre and foucault and all such arcane and irrelevant theorist . david niven have the hard role and have to play with sufficient gusto an age hedonist who yet to grasp that life isn not all about sagan teenybopper notion of a hip and cool and swingin and mon copain . papa . deborah kerr deliver her usual and consummately professional presence and convincingly play the woman who suffer undeservedly seberg spiteful teenaged snot nose jealousy ( fulfil sagan shallow teen fantasy of the classical theme of there can be only one queen bee in the hive ) while in fact and to kerr belongs this film sole great and memorable on screen moment . the dialogue be unnatural i agree with an early reviewer who say that it sound to be badly translate from french while combine the unnatural scripting with seberg incomparably dull and unendurable monotone and you can save that valium for another night . atop all that the ineptly synched post production voice dubbing be and almost throughout and obvious and thus much more than irksome represent this be especially true of the dubbing for mylène demongeot because it spoil her otherwise very please dumb blonde performance . hunky geoffrey horne get the short end of the stick here a very good look young man who also suffer from a less than lovely and uncinematic voice which and when pair with seberg drone and yield unconvincing scene of puppy love . ( horne be and shall we say and merely adequate in bridge on the river kwai and perhaps because his end be hold up by those great cinema pro william holden and jack hawkins instead of be unsupported by the regrettably ungifted seberg ) . in sum bonjour tristesse be pretty to look at but it shallow and immature soap represent thin gruel with suds .