Director: Robin Campillo

Stars: Eloy Pohu, Maksym Slivinskyi, Pierfrancesco Favino, Elodie Bouchez

Written by filmmakers Robin Campilo, Laurent Cantet and Giles Marchand, this affecting and nuanced coming-of-age picture was originally intended to be helmed by Cantet, but his tragic death from cancer in 2024 meant that Campilo stepped in to direct. Pohu is Enzo, a sixteen-year-old living with his wealthy parents – maths lecturer Paolo (Favino) and his wife Marion (Bouchez) – in a grand villa  on the Côte d’Azur. Against the wishes of his father, Enzo has taken a job as a labourer on a building site where he enjoys the blokey badinage, and what he considers honest toil. There are two Ukrainian refugees working on the site, and Enzo forms a close attachment with one of them, the handsome, irreverent Vlad (the Brando-esque Slivinskyi). Inevitably, Enzo compares his refugee workmates’ fraught uncertain situation with his own privileged lifestyle. Filmed in a naturalistic style, this is an affecting study of a young man looking for a sense of belonging and purpose. Newcomer Pohu impresses, and Favino does excellent work mining sympathy as Enzo’s conflicted dad. The picture is particularly strong in its treatment of class and family dynamics. In an early scene, his foreman marches Enzo to his parents to tell them he is not fit for the job, only to be cowed on seeing their luxury villa. The conclusion is very moving.

David Willoughby

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