Words of Love

Rudi Rosenberg’s Words of Love (Quelques mots d’amour) begins with a familiar setup: a teenage girl becomes obsessed with meeting the father she has never known, while the mother who raised her is left dealing with the fallout. Single mother Erika (Hafsia Herzi) tries to hold her household together as Abi (Nour Salam) discovers that her estranged father David is working nearby. The story occasionally leans too heavily on well-worn coming-of-age beats, but Rosenberg pays enough attention to the smaller details to keep it grounded.

Words of Love is at its best in the lead-up to Abi’s first attempt to meet her father. Rosenberg focuses on the small things: her endless outfit changes, the nervous fixing of her hair, the repeated hesitation before she finally tries to introduce herself to David. Abi has spent years building an image of her father in her head, and the picture understands how difficult it is for reality to compete with fantasy. Herzi is particularly strong as Erika, playing her with a bitterness that feels lived-in rather than dramatic. When she tells Abi that David is “not a star”, it lands because it cuts directly through the romanticised version of him Abi has created. The script is particularly thoughtful in the way it handles old resentments. Over a decade later, Erika remains defensive about raising a child with someone who never wanted to be a father, while friends and relatives quietly reveal their own opinions about the situation. Rosenberg never forces these tensions into explosive confrontations, which gives the dynamics a natural, believable touch.

Still, the feature does lose its footing at times. Abi’s attempts to meet David are interrupted and delayed so often that what first feels heartbreaking quickly begins to feel contrived and difficult to believe. Some of the story’s best character writing comes away from the central plot. Abi’s friendship with the endlessly upbeat Clarisse gives the film much of its warmth and humour, while her younger brother Yoni (Mateo Danila) is a constant source of comic relief, his vanity and obsession with women’s toiletries becoming a running joke throughout.

In the end, Words of Love never fully escapes its familiar structure, but its performances and attention to awkward, everyday emotions make it more affecting than it first appears.