‘Spring Blossom’ review: Dir. Suzanne Lindon (2021) [GFF]

At just twenty-one years old, Suzanne Lindon writes, directs, produces, and stars in Spring Blossom, a delicate debut about a teenager disillusioned with people her age and forming an ill-advised relationship with a man two decades older than her – the closing film of this year’s Glasgow Film Fest.

Suzanne is fed up with her lot in life. She doesn’t fit in with other girls her age; she hates parties; she has an insatiable appetite for more. On her way home every day, she stops by the local theatre to muse over mysterious stranger Raphaël (Arnaud Valois) – a thirsty-somethings actor also fed up with the humdrum of his own routine. When the pair finally meet eyes, they realise that they have a lot in common with each other than they do their own age groups. As they start to see each other more seriously, Suzanne begins questioning her identity and place in the world.

Films that tackle relationships with young girls and older men always walk a very fine and audacious line; there’s the worry of condoning such actions and indulging these relationships while also acknowledging the fact that everyone has their own say in who they choose to love and age can be a superficial barrier for some. There’s those that agree; those that don’t. It’s all in the portrayal. As such, it can prove a controversial subject for cinematic dissection – let alone by a twenty-one-year-old (who penned this script when she was just fifteen, by the way). But Lindon’s writing here is careful to handle this topic with sincerity and maturity; it doesn’t focus on the age-gap but, rather, the tangible affection these two characters have for one another. This isn’t a film about their behaviour,  but rather the solace they find with each other – this anxiety is expressed through gorgeously shot and wonderfully fantastical musical sequences.

The directorial flourishes the young filmmaker brings here are delightful; Spring Blossom is at its best when it blurs that line between abstract and reality with those surreal, dream-like sensibilities. And the script is fairly consistent and insightful in how it explores its central relationship. That being said, at only 73-minutes long, the film doesn’t really let its sequences breathe. Lindon’s script offers up more questions than it ends up answering and skims over a lot of the details in its brisk runtime. We don’t get much of a sense of who Suzanne and Raphaël are as people other than their generational musings – or lack thereof. This means their relationship, while charmingly performed, lacks any real nuance. Considering they’re twenty-years apart, many might take issue with a film that doesn’t really sit on any side of the fence purely because it doesn’t have the time to do so. Still, Spring Blossom is an impressive enough debut if even just for the fact that Suzanne Lindon is only twenty-one and she wrote, starred, directed, and produced something quite distinctive here.