‘The Balconettes’: Cannes Review

Dir: Noemie Merlant. France. 2024. 104mins

A French heatwave proves a melting pot of desire, rage and bloody revenge for three female friends in actor-writer-director Noemie Merlant’s horror-comedy hybrid. Rooting its feminist message in an increasingly chaotic, challenging narrative that is equal parts farce, fantasy and gorefest, this will likely divide audiences — but those who click with Merlant’s uncompromising style will enjoy the bracing ride.

Merlant leans full tilt into the darker aspects of her story

The Balconettes premieres in Cannes Midnight Screenings three years after Merlant’s directorial debut Mi Iubita-Mon Amour debuted at the festival as a Special Screening. Merlant’s screenplay is written in collaboration with Celine Sciamma, director of Portrait Of A Lady On Fire in which Merlant starred. It should be a Cannes talking point and is likely to find further festival play and an audience beyond, appealing to fans of Sciamma and particularly Julia Ducournau, with whose work this shares a distinct vibe.

In the blistering heat of a Marseille summer, the residents of neighbouring apartment buildings congregate on their balconies. The camera soars between them, everything is colourful and vibrant as people hang clothes, sunbathe and play music. Uele Lamore’s score, like the atmosphere, is lazy and languorous, slow African drums layered on top of a sultry jazz saxophone.

When the camera comes to rest on a woman lying on her balcony floor, covered in bruises, the tone darkens. What follows is shocking, the first hint that this is no summer of love, but the film quickly moves into the apartment next door shared by writer Nicole (Sanda Codreanu) and cam-girl Ruby (Souheila Yacoub, recently seen in Dune: Part Two). Here, things brighten — the decor is colourful and eclectic, and all they have to worry about is Nicole’s crush on the handsome man who lives in the apartment opposite.

While Nicole is quiet and reserved, Ruby is the polar opposite — relaxed in her skin, confident in her sexuality, and proud of her work as a cam girl, she is a strikingly refreshing character. So, too, is Elise (Merlant), an actress friend who arrives after finishing a shoot in Paris desperate for some space from her overbearing husband (for very good reasons, as we’ll soon find out). Elise turns up dressed as Marilyn Monroe in tight red dress, heels and blonde wig – the ultimate poster girl for male desire, who will go on to shed both restrictive costume and psychological baggage to be a freer version of herself.

Elise, like Ruby, has confidence in her body and is comfortable with nudity, of which there is a great deal – but, asks Merlant, why should it matter? Why shouldn’t these women be able to bare their skin on a hot day, like all the men around them? This is not about titillation, but liberation. To further make that point, the film is shot with a full-frontal directness by female DoP Evgenia Alexandrova. There is, for example, no faux coyness to a scene set in a gynaecologists office. 

The easy intimacy of the women’s friendship is contrasted with the calculated behaviour of the man across the street (Lucas Bravo), a photographer who invites the trio to his flat to party and take their pictures. A good time is seemingly had by all — until it isn’t. A disorienting edit by regular Sciamma collaborator Julien Lacheray cuts suddenly back to the morning brightness of Nicole and Ruby’s flat; when Ruby arrives home, covered in blood, the film shifts a register and picks up rapidly in pace, resulting events fuelled first by shock, then panic, then fury.

Merlant leans full tilt into the darker aspects of her story, the sunny colour palette giving way to sickly blood reds and the cold shadows and sharp edges of the man’s apartment. The film’s gorier elements are shocking, but a subplot involving Nicole’s newfound ability to see the ghosts of men (specifically those killed by women) is more chilling still. Of course, it falls to her to help these moaning spectres understand why their aggressive behaviour may have led directly to their fate.

This, perhaps, is The Balconettes most pointed message: that women are expected to adapt in order to stay safe, and take responsibility for the actions they inspire in men. Nicole, Ruby and Elise are powerfully defiant just by refusing to be intimidated or shaped by patriarchal forces: an idea which rises above the outlandish events unfolding on screen to strike a universal, cathartic chord.