Chloë Sevigny talks indie films, new movie Bonjour Tristesse
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Over a career spanning 30 years, Chloë Sevigny has defined herself as a champion of independent film. Witness a short list of notable movies: Kids (1995); Boys Don't Cry (1999); The Brown Bunny (2004); Broken Flowers (2005); and Beatriz at Dinner (2017).
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Her newest, the limited release Bonjour Tristesse, likewise proves that small can be beautiful. From writer-director Durga Chew-Bose, it's based on Françoise Sagan's 1954 novel of the same name. Another film adaptation was released in 1958, starring Deborah Kerr and Jean Seberg.
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The new movie is set on the French seaside. Teenager Cécile (Lily McInerny), her father (Claes Bang) and his girlfriend (Naïlia Harzoune) are spending languid summer days captured with suitable sun-washed cinematography.
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But things change when Sevigny's character, longtime family friend Anne, arrives. She's quite literally a buttoned-up fashion designer, wearing a crisp white shirt, pearl earrings and a tidy updo. Feeling threatened, Cécile devises a plan to drive Anne away. But she doesn't expect what happens next.
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Sevigny spoke to Postmedia about Bonjour Tristesse, her love of independent film, and the idea of joining a blockbuster franchise like Marvel.
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A: Cécile is growing into womanhood, but she doesn't quite understand it yet. And she's very threatened by this woman coming into her life. I was thinking a lot about my mother and how she would be lovingly critical in the way that she just wants me to have the opportunities that are available to me, to take full advantage of them. How she comes from a different generation, and what she deems as a way of getting something that one would want. So I think it's more interesting, this kind of generational relationship.
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Q: In this movie, Anne over-parents Cécile. But I remember you in Kids — your character there was very under-parented. How do you think the teenage years then compare to now?
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A: It's funny when people say that about Jenny from Kids, because I always imagined her as a girl who went to (a private school) and had a really good family. I think it's because you don't see her household, and in New York at that time there were kids from different upbringings coming together.
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But how things have changed? I imagine social media and all of that is rather challenging. Even for me it's hard, as far as comparing and despairing. I find the immediacy with which we have to respond to people — vis-a-vis texting or emailing or all these other ways we talk — quite stressful. So I think it's harder to just be in the moment.
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A: They're just the opportunities that have come my way. I'm just looking for distinct voices, original voices, something new. To me this felt like a (Éric) Rohmer film or a (Pedro) Almodóvar film. I felt this was like a foreign film written in the English language, which I don't come across often. Also, this character is something that I haven't played often. I thought Durg was a really interesting new voice in movies, and I just wanted to be there to help support her.
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