“Bonjour Tristesse” follows “Aperol Spritz problems” on a glittering, tragic French holiday

More than seven years ago, the Canadian author Durga Chew Bose was commissioned to make a new film adaptation of Hello, sadnessthe popular coming-of-age novel by Françoise Sagan. This happened shortly after the publication of her first book, Too much and not the right mood, and having established herself as an astute essayist in the then-fledgling world of literary blogs and websites (if you read The Awl, you know her). She was a fan of Otto Preminger's original 1958 film starring Deborah Kerr and Jean Seberg; she had never written a film or even been on the set. But she had something to say with this material. Her script included visual descriptions so detailed and specific, right down to the camera movements, that they read like shot lists. She wrote with specific craftsmen, like production designers François-Renaud Labarthe (High life), in the back of my mind. It reads like a director's work, which is perhaps why the producers spent years trying to find a filmmaker for the project. “The wonder of doing something for the first time is that you don't know what is right or wrong,” Chew-Bose tells me. “I didn't realise at first that maybe that wasn't the right way to go about trying to hire a director.”

Finally, the producers recognized the right person for a new Hello, sadness had already been hired – and had basically written a bible on how to do it. Eight months pregnant, Chew-Bose got the call – and got to work. She hired the people she had in mind, like Labarthe and costume designer Miyako Bellizzi (Raw gemstones) and scouted locations. Her team mounted a stunning production in Cassis, the stunning beach town in the south of France. Then she filmed her ambitious script, delivering a promising debut full of superficial pleasures and mysterious, haunting depth.

This contemporary Hello, for which Chew-Bose will receive a Tribute Award at this year's Toronto International Film Festival, is about a family on vacation. Our guide to this world, 17-year-old Cécile (Lily McInerny), lives with her widowed father Raymond (Evil Sisters' Claes Bang) and his new girlfriend Elsa (Nailia Harzoune). They eat, swim, sunbathe and carry their secrets with them, the hallmarks of any successful European vacation. Then Raymond and his late wife's old friend, a Paris-based fashion designer named Anne (Chloe Sevigny), comes. Her attitude, her smile, her style – impeccable hair and makeup with, say, a man's top and a soft skirt – all this upsets Cécile. It disturbs her harmony and at the same time peels off a painful crust. Yet Cécile is undeniably attracted to Anne too.

Here are McInerny’s performances – in only her second film role after her breakthrough in Palm trees and power lines– and Sevigny, who is beguiling in one of her richest film roles in years, are a perfect fit. “By loving Anne, Cécile reveals a gap in her life that she wasn't aware of before – there's a push and pull between wanting closeness, wanting to be cared for, and a kind of resentment about that,” says McInerny. “Chloë really impressed me like a star, so I was able to channel some of those feelings of admiration that inform my style and sense of femininity as Lily. I was able to use that as inspiration for how Cécile looks up to Anne.”

As Anne rekindles her relationship with Raymond, Cécile devises plans to keep Elsa in the picture. In Chew-Bose's hands, a delicate game of manipulation unfolds, one marked by grief, heartbreak and youthful abandonment. “I've been thinking about some of the women in my life and my friendships, and this was a great place to explore that,” says Chew-Bose. “There's a quality to these women and the way they influence each other, argue and pay attention to each other that is always relevant to me. Women paying attention to each other is just endlessly fascinating to me.”