Goodbye, Cruel World
Adieu monde cruel
Viewer Advice: Contains suicide themes
In Cannes Critics’ Week’s tender, strikingly shot closing-night film, two lonely teenagers find an unlikely connection.
In a village tucked in the mountains of Normandy, 14-year-old Otto (Milo Machado-Graner, the astonishing young star of Anatomy of a Fall, MIFF 2023) just wants to disappear. Relentlessly persecuted by his classmates, he writes a farewell letter, sends it out to all and sundry, and heads to a bridge to end it all – but botches it. As everyone thinks he’s dead anyway, he decides to hide out on the outskirts of town. There, he’s discovered by fellow student Léna, who offers him shelter and an affection that fills his void.
The feature directorial debut of Félix de Givry – the breakout star of Mia Hansen-Løve’s Eden – taps into contemporary concerns around bullying and mental health, but focuses more poetically on the adolescent search for belonging and purpose. Machado-Graner delivers a lodestone performance as Otto, portraying his disaffection mostly through wordless gesture, while the 16mm cinematography by Tara-Jay Bangalter – son of Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter – amplifies emotion through striking depictions of light. Evoking the films of François Truffaut and Robert Bresson and capped off with fable-like narration by screen legend Françoise Lebrun (The Mother and the Whore, MIFF 2014), Goodbye, Cruel World is a tale about escaping pain and finding solace in the kindness of others.
“A remarkably assured debut feature … de Givry shows great promise as a maker of intimate, humanist works.” – IndieWire
Tickets
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