17/05/2025 - CANNES 2025: Ella Rumpf and Monia Chokri shine as the pioneers of medically assisted procreation in Alice Douard's debut feature, a sensitive novel about the intimacy of a couple and motherhood

This quote from Nietzsche, slipped into the wide-ranging story of a plunge into the unknown of waiting for a child conceived by two women, at the dawn of gay marriage and the possibilities of adoption, illuminates with great sharpness the profound meaning of Alice Douard's first feature film, Love Letters [+see also:
trailer
film profile], unveiled in a special Critics' Week screening at the 78th Cannes Film Festival.

Because while love and the prospect of becoming a parent have no gender, there are also sometimes "waltzes that can't be danced", contradictory emotions, paradoxes, uncertain desires, joy and melancholy, reunions with the past and projections into the future in the urgency of the present, and bonds that are more or less easy to form or break. In short, there is life, and it is at the very heart of this process that the French filmmaker has chosen to immerse herself in the lives of thirty-year-olds Céline (Ella Rumpf) and Nadia (Monia Chokri).

"Before adoption, it's as if your wife had made a baby all by herself". In the office of her lawyer (Jeanne Herry), Céline discovers the intricacies of the procedure she will have to scrupulously follow in order to put all the chances on her side to officially become the mother of the little girl she is expecting with her partner (and now wife) Nadia, who is carrying the child conceived in Denmark via a sperm donation. She has to gather together photos proving her link with Nadia (travel, pregnancy, etc.) and 15 written testimonials from close friends and family members saying that she wanted this child and that she was present from the start of her life. It's time to get organised, because the birth is scheduled in three months, and both women are starting to get excited and worried about their future lives as young parents. But for Céline, there's an added difficulty: her more than complicated emotional relationship with her own mother, a famous international pianist (Noémie Lvovsky)...

Carried by the power of words (an excellent script with lots of dialogue written by the director) and by the brilliant quality of its lead performers, Love Letters succeeds in transmuting a subject that is certainly fascinating but relatively "technical" (by taking the time to make the individual and societal issues clear), into a romantic and inspired work, in the style of a personal diary. An ultra-attractive incarnation captured with vitality (and with light touches of comedy and romance) thanks to a very strong bias towards long sequences of discussions and the exploration of body language for a first feature that hits its target with meaning and value.

Love Letters was produced by Apsara Films and co-produced by Les Films de June and by France 2 Cinéma. Pulsar Content handles international sales.

(Translated from French)