Love Me Tender
Adapted from Constance Debré’s novel of the same name, Anna Cazenave Cambet’s second feature follows Clémence (Vicky Krieps), a lawyer-turned-writer fighting to regain custody of her young son, Paul (Viggo Ferreira-Redier), as she comes to terms with her queer identity. The legal battle with her ex-husband, Laurent (Antoine Reinartz), simmers in the background as Cambet crafts a poignant exploration of distance – between mother and child, between intention and action, between how women behave and how they are expected to.
Cambet allows her characters to linger in the awkward silences of ordinary encounters and the quiet shock of the unexpected. One of the film’s most striking choices comes when Clémence shaves her head – a gesture often reduced to tired shorthand for breakdown or reinvention. Here, it happens off-screen, between cuts, without warning or explanation. When Clémence reappears, her hair is gone. She offers no commentary, and no other character acknowledges it. The haircut isn’t rebellion or liberation. Like her sexual encounters, it is stripped of symbolism and spectacle – it exists as an act, not a statement.
The director has a keen eye for small, telling contradictions. In one scene, Clémence, seated beside Paul during a supervised visit, learns with muted disbelief that her ex-husband has given Paul an iPhone and instructed him not to share his number. It’s a quiet cruelty – another bureaucratic barrier drawn between mother and child. The moment becomes more piercing when contrasted with a later encounter: in a bar, Clémence sits beside a woman named Sarah (Monia Chokri) and acquires her number with ease. We learn that Paul is now in preparatory school, an age when everything shifts quickly. Clémence no longer knows who his best friends are or what food he currently likes – almost banal details that land with devastating emotional weight.
The film’s emotional crescendo arrives as classical music swells over what might otherwise be a pivotal scene. Clémence, once again attempting to file a report against her ex-husband, isn’t interrupted by another character, but instead drowned out by the score. Her words are present – yet unheard. The soundtrack overtakes her, as if the system itself – impersonal and overwhelming – has absorbed her voice. Love Me Tender does not end in resolution or catharsis. Instead, it offers something far more truthful: the recognition that estrangement rarely comes with rupture – it settles in quietly, until absence feels ordinary.
Christina Yang
Love Me Tender does not have a release date yet.
Read more reviews from our Cannes Film Festival coverage here.
For further information about the event visit the Cannes Film Festival website here.
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