the film premiered at the 1984 international critics' week, an independent parallel section to the cannes film festival. it was released in france on 21 november 1984. vincent canby reviewed the film for "the new york times": "mr. carax is 24, but "boy meets girl" looks like the work of a talented 18-year-old, someone who still spends more time inside the cinematheque francaise than outside it. ... in "boy meets girl", one recognizes a bit of jean-luc godard here, something of francois truffaut there, and every now and then one hears what may be the faint, original voice of mr. carax trying to make himself heard around and through the images of others." canby added however that ""boy meets girl" has been handsomely photographed (by jean-yves escoffier) in black-and-white images that look as velvety smooth as fudge sauce atop vanilla ice cream. the performances are perfectly decent -miss perrier is especially good in a long godardian monologue. what's still missing is the film maker's own idiosyncratic personality, which, if it exists, could surface in mr. carax's next film." the film had a total of 131,042 admissions in france.