With Chloë Sevigny and Claes Bang

The setting of Good morning sad It’s so alluring—a Mediterranean town in the south of France, where a grand villa overlooks the sea—that it immediately draws you into this adaptation of Françoise Sagan’s classic novel. The first film from writer-director Durga Chew-Bose, her tale of teenage desire, jealousy, and sexual awakening, updated here to the present, is always glorious to look at—from the brightly colored floor tiles to the sparkling water. But once inside, its emotional trajectory is curiously flat, even though the cast includes two usually vivacious actors, Claes Bang and Chloë Sevigny.

The plot is essentially the same as that which caused a sensation in Sagan when the book was published in 1954. The author was only 18, the age of the film's central character, Cecile (Lily McInerny), whose point of view we largely share. She is on vacation with her father, Raymond (Bang), and his latest young girlfriend, Elsa (Nailia Harzoune), who like the others will surely be replaced soon. Sevigny plays an old family friend, the elegant but proper fashion designer Anne, who arrives to join them. When Anne and Raymond suddenly become engaged, Cecile plans to break them up and keep her life as it is.

Cecile’s mother died years ago, and she and Raymond are particularly close, though not in a suspicious way. Chew-Bose makes a smart choice in starting the film with Cecile and her new love, a neighbor about her age named Cyril (Aliocha Schneider). Whatever Cecile’s issues with her father, she’s not simply obsessed with him; one night she surprises Cyril by sneaking into his bed.

But she was a sophisticated observer of Raymond’s womanizing. Part of the problem with the new version is that the sexual freedom that seemed shocking seven decades ago is no longer shocking, either for father or daughter. The most bizarre behavior here is that everyone smokes, and the adults even light Cecile’s cigarettes for her. Chew-Bose’s script doesn’t explore the characters deeply enough to replace the book’s stunning quality with any psychological depth.

Maximilian Pittner's photography is sparkling throughout, and Good morning sad moves fluidly. But the performances seem stiff, and not in an intentionally stylized way. We know that Bang (The square and Apple TV+ Bad Sisters) can be seductive and charming even when playing a villain. Raymond is supposed to be a scheming scoundrel, but he's strangely lifeless. McInerny (Hulu's Tell me lies AND Palm trees and power lines) makes Cecile's jealousy and confusion visceral, but the script doesn't give her much to do other than lounge in the sun and try to break off the engagement by asking Elsa to take Raymond away from Anne.

Sevigny does much better in the role, partly because Anne is already so tense. She wears her hair in a severe twist, carries herself with a prim bearing, and tries to convince Cecile to study for her college entrance exams. The actress has one incredible scene when the camera, close to her face, captures a look of pure, eye-opening pain as she recognizes how unfaithful Raymond can be. But too often these characters are just outright declarations of their feelings.

Crew-Bose has written about cinema and published a collection of essays, Too much and I'm not in the mood (2017). Her screenplay is thoughtful enough to try to flesh out the motivation behind Raymond and Anne's unlikely decision. She and Raymond's late wife had been close friends, and it's suggested that Anne and Raymond may have more history than anyone knows. But all that flies by. It's true that from her limited perspective, Cecile can't understand what's going on any better than we can. But that doesn't make up for the film's overall shallowness.

Cecile's plot leads to the tragic consequences that conclude the book and introduce her to true sadness. Crew-Bose makes the bold choice to extend the story beyond the novel and gives her one of the film's best episodes, chilling in its revelation of the emotional fallout of Cecile's actions. Greater boldness might have made Good morning sad something that goes beyond a pretty picture.