This loosely plotted coming-of-age tale follows the life of 15-year-old Laurent Chevalier as he stumbles his way over the burgeoning swell of adolescence in 1950s France. After having his first sexual experience with a prostitute and dodging the lips of a priest, Chevalier contracts a case of scarlet fever. When the fever leaves him with a heart murmur, Chevalier is placed in a sanatorium, along with his over-attentive and adulterous mother.
Ratings
Curator score: 7.5/10
IMDb: 7.5/10
Letterboxd: 3.82/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 94%
TMDB: 7.0/10
Director
Louis Malle
Production
Marianne Productions, Franz Seitz Filmproduktion, Vides Cinematografica, Nouvelles Éditions de Films
Cast
Lea Massari, Benoît Ferreux, Marc Winocourt, Fabien Ferreux, Daniel Gélin, Michael Lonsdale, Ave Ninchi, Annie Savarin, Gila von Weitershausen, Micheline Bona, Henri Poirier, Liliane Sorval, Jacqueline Chauvaud, Corinne Kersten, René Bouloc, Jacques Gheusi, Jacques Sereys, Yvon Lec, Bernadette Robert, Eric Walter
Curator Review
Verdict
A daring, funny, and emotionally slippery coming-of-age film that turns adolescent awakening into something both tender and disquieting. Its mix of bourgeois satire, jazz-soaked atmosphere, and taboo family dynamics makes it memorable even when it feels deliberately uncomfortable.
Best for
Viewers who like French New Wave-adjacent coming-of-age stories
Fans of provocative family dramas and taboo subjects
People interested in 1950s France, bourgeois satire, and sexual awakening narratives
Viewers who appreciate films that balance comedy with unease
Skip if
You want a straightforward, feel-good teen movie
You are strongly put off by incest themes or sexual taboo
You prefer tightly plotted stories with clear moral boundaries
You dislike films that mix tenderness with discomfort
Overview
Louis Malle makes adolescence feel both comic and dangerous here, capturing the confusion of desire with a light touch that slowly curdles into something more unsettling. The film’s loose structure suits its subject: a boy drifting through first lust, family chaos, illness, and self-discovery without ever fully understanding what any of it means.
Worth noting
What gives the film its charge is the contrast between its breezy surface and the taboo material underneath. Malle treats Laurent’s world with affection and irony, but he never lets the audience settle into comfort; the mother-son bond, in particular, gives the film its most controversial and unforgettable edge.
Bottom line
It’s a distinctive work of French cinema: sensual, witty, and morally uneasy, with a strong sense of period detail and an undercurrent of melancholy. If you’re open to a coming-of-age film that is as provocative as it is observant, this is well worth the watch.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Cuckley (4★) · 546 likes
To quote Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek,
It's one of those nice, gentle French movies where you have incest.
Ethan Colburn (4★) · 252 likes
Laurent, you motherfucker!
Fascinating exploration of sexual maturation and the life of a teenager who is simultaneously very emotionally mature and unsure how to act on his feelings.
Louis Malle has a broad range of work, but his sensitivity towards childhood and love for jazz always shines through. I am so glad I've discovered his work this last year. It is occasionally challenging but always immersive.
Richard Chandler (4.5★) · 162 likes
"To think someone might do that in Dijon."
From the director who would later issue a tender account of Dixieland child prostitution comes Oedipus-haute bourgeois-style in the form of Murmur of the Heart (Le souffle au cœur), in which a haughty teen does some advanced bonding with his highly liberated mother while convalescing at an Alsatian spa. Despite its notorious incest theme, a cultural backdrop of parochial stuffiness, and recurrent allusions to the calamitous siege of Dien Bien Phu (betokening the… more
Julps2 (4★) · 138 likes
Ah teenage years...
School, friends, your first cigarette, your first love, your first kiss, your first time cross-dressing as your own mom for whom you feel a deep and incestuous love.
Hunter (4.5★) · 112 likes
There’s no childhood anymore.
Google "coming of age movies" and you will likely come across such films as Rebel Without A Cause, The Breakfast Club, and The Spectacular Now. Nothing wrong with those movies; in fact, some of them hold very special places in my heart. I assure you, none of those films could have prepared me for this, Murmur of the Heart.
Director Louis Malle has here constructed the telling of one boy's journey out of adolescence and into… more
1961 · Drama · 1h 40m · Curator 7.0/10 (18.5K ratings) · Where to watch: Max
A sharp, humane drama about youth, family instability, and unconventional intimacy.
Topics
coming-of-age, French cinema, taboo drama, sexual awakening, bourgeois satire, 1950s period piece, family dysfunction, dark comedy, psychological drama, New Wave-adjacent