Spring Blossom review – light and airy age-gap romance swerves controversy
Suzanne Lindon's debut, written when she was just 15, works as a brief but enjoyable calling card for a talented young filmmaker
Perhaps the most impressive thing about the light and airy romance Spring Blossom is that, despite dealing with a discomforting age gap (a 16-year-old girl dating a 35-year-old man), it never feels like it’s baiting controversy. Instead, it approaches its central couple with tasteful honesty and an only slightly judgmental eye, made far more palatable by the fact that creator Suzanne Lindon wrote the film when she was herself 15 and then starred in and directed it at 20.
It’s a hugely impressive feat for a teenager, even if the end result does sometimes feel, inevitably, like a student film. Lindon plays a fictionalised version of herself, a girl on the cusp of her last years of school who is bored by her classmates and seeks some sort of adventurous escape. She finds it in the form of Raphael (Arnaud Valois), a rather pompous theatre actor with just as much ennui as her.
Even with a very brief 74 minute runtime, Lindon gives this relationship room to breathe, taking care to make each stage as believable as possible – in a very fun, very truthful touch, the pair’s initial chance encounters fizz with energy, but their first organised “date” suddenly brings the awkwardness. It’s hard to get properly emotionally invested in the relationship – Raphael is pretty unlikeable even before the moral repugnance of dating a teenager – but Lindon’s keen eye for detail keeps things engaging.
Though mostly inconspicuous in her directing style, Lindon occasionally cuts loose with some really beautiful dance sequences that come dangerously close to breaking the fourth wall before just about pulling themselves back from that brink. It shows a confidence of style and performance that ensures Lindon is a talent to watch going forward both in front of and behind the camera. Spring Blossom won’t stick with you, exactly, but it’s still an impressive calling card for a very young filmmaker with an undoubtedly bright future ahead of her.
Spring Blossom is now streaming on Curzon Home Cinema.
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